


Impossible Odds

by Nervoustouch



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: And Puddles, Catching buses, Declarations Of Love, F/M, Frottage, Gambling, Hux is Not Nice, Johnson and Sabrina, Lust, Opposites Attract, Sex, Slow Burn, Smoking, Wearing of the good hat, shark attack, this is not Reylux or Reylo, torture through the reading of tween fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 00:39:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14032341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nervoustouch/pseuds/Nervoustouch
Summary: She swallowed, pushing down the urge to snap at the frowning General. “If you propose a wager Hakka won’t be able to refuse. Simply bet for the land.” Rey pulled a new rolling paper out of its packet, twirling expertly to its thin tube. “I’ve already softened him up; I guarantee he’d jump at the chance.”“The First Order doesn’t bet for anything, that’s a flimsy plan,” he sneered.





	1. The Negotiation

A medley of exotic slaves reclined on their loose, golden chains as they peered, bored and pampered, from their many soft cushions. 

General Hux’s eyes drifted past their skimpy, sheer costumes and sleepily fluttering eyelashes. The display of flesh is unwanted. Instead he focused on the Hutt he was negotiating with.

“I’m afraid I have to insist, the munition factory needs to be built here. It makes sense to build near the mines that will supply it. Sign the contract Hakka. You will be generously compensated for otherwise unusable swamp.” 

The black-eyed Rodian translator reluctantly passes the message to his master.

Land negotiations between the First Order and the Hutts on Nal Hutta were not going well. In fact the General was getting nowhere. Between the initial trouble of finding out which of the seemingly infinite warlords controlled most of the planet’s usable territory, and the difficulties in getting an audience with the fat beast; he was ready to blow the whole stinking, garish gambling palace apart and be done with it.

Hakka, who General Hux been informed was technically the best to exchange with, was a particularly huge and corrupt animal. His yellow eyes continually clicked as if even his eyeballs were too large for his thick skull making the General think of oversized swamp insects. Hakka loudly huffed and yelled at his translator. Causing the already alert palace guards to tense and draw their cheap, outdated weapons. 

If the Hutts wanted a pissing contest they were sadly under-prepared. The General held up his black leather clad hand as his stormtroopers lifted the muzzles of their blasters to chest height. 

The sight of the First Order guns pointed at their faces caused the slaves to panic and strain at their tethers, their hands clawing uselessly at their clamped collars. 

Now he had their full attention. 

General Hux frowned at the translator and laced his hands behind his back while impatiently rocking on his heels. He hated being used as a negotiator and he couldn’t hide his blatant distaste for his land buying mission. To him it seemed an inane exchange, one that the Supreme Leader had dumped in his already over-full lap. The General felt his eye twitch, an involuntary trait that struck in times of tension. He felt he was nothing more than a messenger boy.

The General motioned to his guards. “Tell your master he has 24 hours to decide, after that we’ll go to another warlord and this insult will be remembered. Not one First Order supplier will be visiting this, this backwards hell, to gamble or do any other business. He will learn that I am not a person to be slighted.”

Flanked by his stormtroopers General Hux turned on his heal and left the large room.

***

One of the slave girls, a young, blonde humanoid, looked sharply at the translator as General Hux exited. The translator shook his head, in a silent reply, his green head fin quivering. He avoided making eye contact at first, then started protesting and swearing in Rodian as she mumbled angrily, pointing a finger at the door the General had just walked out of. The slave girl hooked a finger under her collar, rubbing the red skin underneath. She turned and spoke in Huttese directly to her master in a flurry of frustrated anger. 

Hakka rumbled and moaned tugging on her chain, jerking her tiny form. Leaning close to her smooth tanned face he stickily licked his tongue over fat lips.

“That’s not the deal,” the slave girl grinds through a tensed jaw, the Hutt language falling easily from her tongue, like soft animal grunts. 

The slave girl reminds the Hutt of the gamble he had already committed to. That the Resistance needs the factory here also. She reminds him it won’t last long, but Hakka is argumentative, he knows the business of war is bad for his territory. Dead beings can’t place bets nor mine ore.

“That is the deal,” Hakka tells her. “I will gamble with the General for this land. If he wins he can buy it. If he loses he leaves us alone. This is the only way I can save face.”

“It’s how you can wring more money out of all this.”

Hakka shrugs, and the other slave girls and boys eye the conversation jealously while getting repeatedly jarred by the Hutts quivering bulk. 

“I like money. The more I stall the more I’ll get.”

After arguing for some time the increasingly agitated translator gets the reluctant signal to summon a pair of palace guards and Hakka angrily shoved the girls leash into their outstretched hands.

Tossing her hair the slave girl stood and turned her back to the Hutt. “This better work or I too will personally find a warlord who’s prepared to negotiate, and I can do far more damage than some First Order freak.” she swung her chain, feeling the cold links between her palms. “I personally know the Huttslayer.”

Hakka just growled and stuffed more food into his gaping mouth. As the slave girl was led away she could hear him saying in his rough, spluttering voice.

“Jedi – bad luck.” 

***

Led inside the visiting First Order command ship Rey straightened what little of her costume she had. Fishing the shiny, gold fabric of her underwear out of her ass for she tried to ignore the nearby stormtroopers, who kept nudging each other and making other small signaled conversations. For the millionth time she had felt another hand squeeze her exposed flesh. 

She pondered why she had she picked such a disguise? Then she sighed. She knew why, it was an insane necessity. Along with the hair bleach and her current, criminal overuse of black eye make-up. 

She had expected she would just be watching the exchange on contracts for her mission. Not here. Not alone on a First Order ship cobbling a ludicrous plan together.

As the door to the bridge opened Rey touched the grip on her collar. It had a pin that would automatically release her from her bonds if needed. It gave her some small comfort as she moved deeper into the enemies den. 

The General wasn’t facing her as she approached; instead he was smoking a cigarette and staring at a large comm screen. Rows of computers stretched behind him, while smirking officers in their smart, black uniforms arched their eye-brows at her appearance.

“What is it?” General Hux barked.

“A, ahem, gift from the Hutt,” a stormtrooper commander informed him.

The General turned around and his eyes swept up the slave girls body, slowly taking in her long legs, jutting hip bones, breasts straining beneath tight, almost transparent silk, pink parted lips and soft hair falling in golden waves. 

He exhaled a plume of grey-blue smoke through flared nostrils. 

“I don’t want it,” he turned back around and waved his hand. The stormtroopers grabbed at the Hutt’s guards to lead them away.

“Wait,” Rey said urgently, before smoothing her voice to what was hopefully seductive. “I can help you with your negotiations.”

“I very much doubt it,” the General sighed and tapped at his screen. “Put it in my room.”

Hakka’s guards happily handed over the chain to the stormtrooper captain and backed away bowing before being escorted off the ship.

Meanwhile, the slave girl meekly enough walked in front of the captain, his white faceless armor brushing all too often against her bare skin. One of his hands tugged at her chain, giving her a short leash and the other firmly guided her through the corridors by grasping her hip. She was sure he had walked her around the area twice. Parading his unusual prisoner in front of the other troopers, all who seemed to be guarding empty hallways. 

Finally they stopped at the General’s private quarters and the stormtrooper scanned his hand in front of the access panel to make the door slide across. Pushed into a regular looking room, unremarkable and plain, the slave girl stumbled slightly, then turned to snarl at the captain.

“Careful,” she hissed.

Through the helmet’s modulator she heard the man beneath the mask chuckle. Pulling on her chain she was drawn towards him until her face was almost touching his helmet. He pressed his free hand against her cheek, squeezing her face, silently demanding she turn her lips to his garish helmet. From this close Rey could dimly see his human eyes peering at her through the darkened mirrors of his head covering. 

_“You will give me my chain and not return.”_

The captain immediately stepped back, placing the end of her lead in her outstretched hand. He exited silently closing the door behind him.

Feeling she could breathe again Rey rolled her head, stretched her abused neck muscles and looked around. 

A plain bed perfectly made, a large desk, nothing interesting, just grey on grey on black. Opening a cupboard she took out a long black First Order officer’s jacket; perfectly pressed and starched to a cardboard like stiffness. It would have to do. She was shivering in the ships cooling cycle and she had no want to face the General wearing less than what her underwear usually covered. Slipping on the jacket she rolled up the sleeves.

“Now what?” She thought to herself. Then she stealthily checked the drawer on the desk while pretending to lean on it. Locked of course. Bending across the desk she checked there were no other compartments concealed at the back. She wondered if there was a camera in the room. Probably best not to look too suspicious. 

Fishing around in the jacket pocket the slave girl found a packet of rolling papers. She settled in the single chair at the desk, tucking one bare foot tucked underneath her buttocks to try and warm it up. Her icy bare toes stung in the sudden heat. 

She reminded herself again why this had to be done, that the Resistance needed the First Order’s factory here. Anywhere else would make it problematic to sabotage. 

Rey pulled one of the thin cigarette papers out of its packet and curled it between her fingers, trying to make the smallest tube she could, carefully rolling and re-rolling the paper. Once she believed she had made the smallest tube possible she dropped it on the desk and started with a new one. It took seventeen rolls for the general to enter the room.

He glared at her, his eyes like knives.

“Take that off.”

“You take yours off,” she dropped the paper tube she was forming.

“Just tell me what he wants and get out.”

He towered over her menacingly, stiff and angular, but this slave girl is not easily intimidated.

“I want to get off this stinking planet, so I…” she enunciated the ‘I’ clearly as if he’s hard of hearing. “… I firmly want to trade. I’ll tell you how to get that contract signed and you get me out of here.”

The General rubbed his forehead with his black gloved hand looking exhausted. He pushed past her, jarring against her leg to unlock the desk drawer.

One glass tumbler thumps on the desk then a gin bottle. He neatly poured a generous tipple, one arm behind his back. 

“I only have one glass,” he advised before raising it towards her mockingly then drinks. 

He watched her, thin lipped and brooding, as she brushed her collar with her fingertips. 

Rey took a deep breath. “Hakka likes to gamble.”

“All of the Hutts do, that’s nothing new.”

She swallowed, pushing down the urge to snap at the frowning General. “If you propose a wager he won’t be able to refuse. Simply bet for the land.” Rey pulled a new rolling paper out of its packet, twirling expertly to its thin tube. “I’ve already softened him up; I guarantee he’d jump at the chance.”

“The First Order doesn’t bet for anything, that’s a flimsy plan,” he sneered.

“I know the pod races, I can give you the winning vehicle. I can guarantee the win.”

Slamming the empty glass down on the desk the General put his hands on the arms of her chair, his face inches from her own. She can see every pore and amber hair on his pale skin as he lent into her, she could smell the alcohol and stale smoke on his breath.

Rey can’t help but to continue to press one hand against her collar as he hovers, while her fingers on the other hand kept rolling. She understood why the General has a reputation as a loathsome sadist, everything she had seen of him so far made her dislike him and he wasn't improving on close contact. 

The General blinked slowly as his body moved closer, Rey’s chain jangled under the jacket swung between her legs and dragged, pooling on the bottom of the chair.

Swallowing dryly while she rolled her paper tube Rey avoided his pale eyes. The foot she’s still sitting on felt numb.

“Stand up,” he ordered, a little too loudly for how close he pressed, and Rey feels his lips graze her cheek.

She couldn’t help it, her fury flashed as she flicked the tightly wound cigarette paper at his face and he jumps, eyes widening.

He snapped up and pulled her out of the chair so she swings momentarily getting her legs straight falling into his clawing arms. The General stripped his jacket off her, pulling roughly at the black fabric, and wrapped her leash around his fist yanking her to the door.

“Tell your master that I won’t be tricked into anything. If he doesn’t sign that contract there will be consequences, and all this,” he gestured at her. “Is just cheap TRASH. It doesn’t work on me.” 

She practically fell through the doorway into a waiting stormtrooper and General Hux flung the leash at the guard with clatter of metal chain on plastic.

“Take her back to the Hutt,” the General ordered before the door slides shut with a hiss.


	2. Bad Bets

He opened the new bottle of liquor and poured. First for the slave girl, then for himself, then he waited for her to drink. 

She sipped sullenly, barely wetting her lips, her kohl rimmed eyes downcast. 

Seeing her on her knees made the General feel vindicated for his poor reception of her the previous evening. Let the girl beg; let her – he stared at the dirty soles of her feet splayed behind her - suffer.

Hakka had insisted she kneel in front of the General for the second meeting in his throne room; although her lead was still tied to the metal ring under the Hutt’s throne.

"A toast then," the General said as he raised his glass. "To the most beautiful girl in the room."

It had felt like General Hux’s entire staff had commented on her visit, or winked, or elbowed him in a knowing way. The odd attention of his subordinates had disarmed him. He had become a minor celebrity for the stupidest of reasons. It never ceased to amaze him how immature people could be. 

He wondered if he should pretend he was interested in Hakka’s plan. The General had no doubt that the girl had nothing to do with the idea, she could hardly keep a civil tongue in her head. The slave was nothing but a poor excuse of a distraction.

The slave girl in question blushed as the room drank to her health. She pursed her lips, obviously biting back a retort, and instead jerkily mimicked his toast and drank; before being wracked by a coughing fit. 

The General calmly watched her hacking, her eyes watering, creating black rivers down her cheeks. He topped up her shaking glass glad he didn’t waste any of his liquor on her at their previous meeting. Then he passed the bottle to the translator before pulling a cigarette case out of his inside jacket pocket. 

He offered the open case to the slave girl, and then snapped it shut with a click when she refused curtly. The soft blue smoke curled around them as he watched Hakka over her blonde hair. 

He knew, he knew, it was just a matter of time and he would have the upper hand. So much for the Hutt’s pretend anxiety, they would come around. Everyone did if you threw them enough money, or guns, or slaves.

The General finished off his drink in one burning gulp as he half listened while Hakka’s translator recited a long list of compliments around the greatness of the First Order. 

His pale eyes peered curiously at the slave girl as if she was a surly and bored school girl sent off to see the headmaster for whipping. The General dropped his spent cigarette in front of her face, barely missing burning her cleavage. It landed between her knees. He slowly ground the fallen butt to ash, his black boot twisting slowly between her legs.

The slave girl scowled at him, her mouth is so close. She wrinkled her nose, rolling her head away from his dick in her face, but she stayed in her place. He notices she’s patting her collar like it’s choking her. Good. Choke.

Finally the translator finished droning.

"So have you made a decision Hakka? When can we start building?"

The translator cleared his throat. "My Lord has decided that it would not be good for the tribes to bring the conflict of the First Order to our land. He must decline your offer."

"The offer was generous," General Hux stood firm. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Hakka burbled and the translator shrugged. "How did you enjoy the slave he sent you? My master says she is a fine Imperial human specimen."

"I'm here to talk land, not bribes. If you have made up your mind I will inform the Supreme Leader and we will take our business elsewhere. However I guarantee that you will regret your decision."

The translator looked at his master, his black eyes glistening as he repeats the General's message. The Hutt rumbled a reply and the slave’s chain hissed, sliding on the floor as she sharply turns her head to face Hakka.

"My master doesn't wish to upset the First Order, Hakka is just wanting to do what is right for his people. To become involved in a war is a grave thing. However, what if… Well, if we had no choice but to let the First Order build then that would be another matter," the translator clicked his tongue as if searching for the right way to continue. "My master wonders if the First Order has any alternative ideas?"

The palace grew quieter. Many ears listened, Hakka liked to be surrounded by an audience, his crowded throne room resembled a dancing cantina more than a palace. 

The General glared at the Hutt warlord, “You mean a wager for the land?”

The translator almost trips over himself he answered so quickly. “We are so glad you suggest such a thing. It would give my master more time to explain the benefits of the venture to his people and well,” the translator spread his hands. “Everyone in Nal Hutta enjoys a bet.”

“I never… You will be sorry we can't do business,” the General turned and snapped his fingers at his stormtroopers.

“Wait,” the slave girl clearly spoke. “Just listen to Hakka.”

“Do not get involved slave. Your chain needs shortening.”

“Is the First Order too afraid to take a chance?” She retorted.

“I'd watch your filthy mouth, the First Order is not afraid of anything.”

Instead of backing down the slave girl stood and announced to the room. “Look how this quivering lackey for the Supreme Leader runs away.”

The various hangers on around the palace smirked and nodded to each other, and the Hutt rumbled at the translator slapping his sides as if he were laughing.

“The wager would be very simple General Hux,” the translator advised.

“What? What is it?”

Opening his mouth the Hutt interrupted him, tugging the blonde slave girl’s chain and dragged her towards him. Her hands flew up to her neck as she gasped.

Whatever the Hutt was saying upset her, she turned on her master and yelled in Huttese, arguing loudly, jabbing her finger into his fat, rolling hide. The Hutt chuckled and yanked her chain, she bobbed like a fish on a line drawn closer. The other slaves watched the exchange with amusement laughing behind their pillows.

The slave girl turned to the translator. “This wasn't the...” She looked at General Hux and picked up a nearby gilt edged cushion throwing it violently at him. It bounced harmlessly away.

“No, no bet,” she told the General. “Just go.”

“This is how you treat business matters? You let your pathetic slaves insult them?” 

The girl tried launching herself at him, but her restraints left her arms wind-milling in the air her face growing redder and redder. 

“I accept the wager,” the General smirked.

“No!” She howled and put her hand up, a look of concentration momentarily settling on her face. The Hutt pulled so hard on her leash she was forced to stumble into his greasy belly.

The translator perked up. “Very good General Hux, you are so wise, so understanding.” His black eyes gleamed. “The bet is that you must spend one month in the close company of this slave girl.” 

The General’s face fell. 

“I thought it was pod racing.”

“Very close company,” the translator informed him.

A box appeared as the General tried to comprehend the wager he had just agreed on. It was flipped open by one of the Hakka’s bodyguards. Two plain plastic circles were inside.

“It's a very simple wager. My master believes you cannot last one month with this slave girl. These are proximity bracelets,” the translator held up a plastic circle. “You both wear one. If they turn red you are too far apart you lose. If you try to take them off, they turn red, you lose.” 

“I don't...” the general cleared his throat. “Not that one?” He points at the blonde slave girl, the one who had pestered him, who is obviously in a rage over the idea.

“Yes, that one,” the interpreter smiled.

He frowned at the slave girl who had her face buried in the fat of her master. Her bottom, barely covered in sparkling fabric wriggling at the General as she tried to escape.

The Hutt rumbled.

“He asks if you don't like females of your species?”

The room snickered.

“I accept,” the General snapped. “But in one month I will have bulldozers on site ready to clear. I will win this ridiculous wager.”

“Maybe,” the Hutt slurred clear enough that even General Hux can understand him.

Around the room the General heard some beings loudly announcing their books open for betting. For General Hux, representative of the First Order to last one month with the new slave. Twenty to one odds. Hands fluttered and voices started rattling.

“Your partner must come back to this room in 30 days alive also,” the interpreter instructed loudly. 

“Not an issue,” the General held out his fist.

“I was talking to her.” 

Before he can change his mind a guard is snapping a bracelet around the General's wrist then adjusting it with a tiny tool.

The slave girl sat sulking in front of the Hutt, her head in her hands. He rumbled to her and her shoulders sagged. She limply held out her hand for her bracelet fitting. Hakka motioned the General to come closer and the Hutt pressed her leash into his black glove.

“My master wishes you the best of luck, and for you both to go far, far away for the next 30 days.”

As soon as the General is handed the slave girl’s leash, she immediately started to berate him. Her obvious dislike for her new master is gleefully studied by the bookies who pencil waved wads of bills and comm screen displays into their lined notepads.

“Don’t start with me slave. This is all a necessary negotiation and in a month I'll start building a new factory and I don't care what happens to you. So go wag your finger somewhere else.”

She picked up a glass off a nearby table and threw the drink in his face. 

“Very mature.”

“I had to do that or I would have smashed it over your head. You think I wanted this?” 

“I don't know, did you? All this seems coincidental," he pulled a perfectly ironed handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face. 

The crowd in the palace held their breath. The odds of them lasting a month grew longer by the second.

“I honestly did not know this was the wager. To be put in this situation is one-million times worse than to be kept here. You aren't exactly anyone I want to be associated with. To be trapped for a month with a slimy, evil First Order pencil pusher!” 

“Ha, that from a Hutt slave girl. Someone who’s probably eaten more dicks than hot dinners.”

“You!”

He grabbed her wrist before her hand could follow through. His black glove wrapped firmly around her white arm. His diverted attention missed the second hand that made contact twice as hard. His face snapped sideways but he didn't let go of her wrist, instead he squeezed her trapped arm until tears pricked her eyes. 

“This will not work. It was an inane plan thought up by a group of scamming criminals. I refuse to continue.” He finished with a hard crush of leather on skin making her grunt with the pain.

“I agree. I'd rather take my chances with the Hutt.” 

“I'd rather you...”

A beeping from the Generals comms device interrupted his next insult.

“Stay here,” he moved out of the room leaving her staring at his circling stormtroopers. 

Meanwhile, General Hux stepped into a wide hallway had opened the link between him and the Supreme Leader. Kylo Ren loomed even on the tiny screen. He was very good at acting the dark psychopath.

“Supreme Leader...” Kylo Ren’s new name still stuck in the General’s throat every time he had to utter it.

“When will it be operational?” Kylo cut through, his voice rasped icily through his mask.

“Unfortunately we will have to find an alternative location, this one is not negotiable.”

“This is the location, I need it, and the support of the Hutts. Do whatever it takes General.”

“It is impossible…”

“Useless, I'll talk to Hakka myself. I should have done that to begin with.”

“No,” the General’s proximity bracelet started to glow yellow. He saw with horror that the Supreme Leader noticed the light, so he angled his arm so it wasn’t in view.

Kylo Ren leaned forward. “What aren't you telling me? You're hiding something from me.”

The General pressed his lips together. He badly needed a cigarette. 

“I made a bet to win the land we need.”

“And you lost?”

“No.”

“Then you won? I don't have time for games.”

“The bet is not a good one.”

“Tell me now or I will find out, and if I have to find out for myself it will not end well for you.”

“The bet is,” the General could feel his eye started to twitch as the Supreme Leader waited. “The bet is I have to live with one of Hakka’s slave girls for a month.”

The Supreme Leader sat still, unmoving, as if waiting for the rest of the information. 

He finally spoke. “So, she is quite ugly to look at?”

“No, she is fine. Beautiful.”

“You don't like women?”

The General sputtered. “No, I mean yes. I like women. Why does everyone keep saying that?”

“Then what is your problem General?”

“Everything, I don't have time for this. I agreed to the wager before finding out the terms, I thought it would be pod racing.”

The Supreme Leader’s fingers tapped his desk irritably. “I don't care how you get that contract signed. I saw the proximity bracelet you useless excuse for a man. Cut off her hand and carry it around with you if that's what needed. If the foundations aren't being poured for my factory in one month you'll be permanently assigned to Darkknell Mine. Do I make myself clear?”

The Supreme Leader closed the link leaving General Hux with the usual post-Kylo Ren bad taste in his mouth. His extreme ire at not assassinating Ren when he had the chance left him seething. His proximity bracelet turned to orange and started vibrating.

Quickly the General turned and pushed past some drunk who had been trying to listen into the discussion. 

It was easy enough to find the girl, as she argued with a guard to be let out of the palace reception. He watched her stamp her foot in frustration and their bracelet lights turned off at his aproach. 

He snatched the tightly wound chain out of her hand and opened the door marching her outside. 

As soon as his feet touched the ground he fished a cigarette out of his jacket and lit up, inhaling deeply. He felt his hair had been slightly dislodged. A red strand blew across his forehead in a weak wind, he shoved it back in place, but it fell again pricking at his forehead.

He jabbed his cigarette in her direction. “Can you take all that off? All that glittery rubbish.”

“Now?” She squeaked.

A nearby stormtroopers chortled before quickly moving away.

“Not now you fool. If we are stuck together at least dress less like a cheap floor show.”

“Wait up,” she folded her arms. “I don't agree to this at all.”

“As a slave you do realize you don’t have a choice?” Seeing her eyes flash he changed tact. “After a month I’ll ensure you’re set free, take you wherever you want.”

“No thank you,” she turned away.

“What do you want? I need that factory here. Name your price.”

She paused. Good she was thinking for a change. He watched her watch him, it made General Hux feel uneasy, the way she explored his face, like she was searching for a sign.

The breeze kicked up and the slave girl wrapped her arms around herself.

“Give me your jacket,” she demanded.

He groaned and shrugged off his jacket while juggling her lead. He felt oddly naked in just his shirt. He finished his cigarette and dropped the butt into the mud.

“I don't want to be stuck on a ship the whole time. I don’t want to have to be around soldiers. They keep touching me.”

“Fine, we'll go to a planet somewhere. Sit on our hands for a month. Where do you want to go? You want to stay on Nal Hutta?”

She shook her head. “How about Arkanis?” 

General Hux coughed and rubbed his temple before patting his chest. She was wearing his jacket, she had his cigarettes. Of course she would choose his homeworld.

“You've done your research on me haven’t you? Fine, I have a house there. It’s reasonably secluded. That's actually a good suggestion,” he lied.

“And you can't hurt me, or put me down, and I want five-hundred thousand credits.”

“How about you don't talk to me ever,” he countered. “That price is outrageous, what would you even do with that much?” His hand automatically went to his chest patting at nothing.

She reached into his jacket and passed his plain, silver cigarette tin to him. He put a butt between his lips and passed the tin back. He reached for his chest again slumping. She also had his lighter in his jacket.

“Maybe we should write all this down? Make it official?” She held out the lit lighter and he cupped her small fingers steady inside his yellow stained hand to light. The smoke made her cough, and she waved the expanding tendrils away from her face. 

As her hand fanned she reached out towards him. She brushed the strand of hair back behind his ear as he flinched away from her touch.

“Tell me your name."

“Whatever you want it to be.”

“New rule, don't be so fucking dramatic. I get enough of that already.”

She made a face at him. “Call me Tara.”

“Alright… Tara. If we win this insane bet, and you keep out of my way then I'll pay you. Most expensive prostitute I've ever bought." The General snapped a finger at a passing stormtroopers and wandered back to his ship, leading his new slave on her golden chain.


	3. 60 Types of Rain

Rey was three long days into her confinement stuck bored and alone inside the General’s aging, but luxurious home. Already the hours had stretched out like endless grains of sand in the desert. She had never felt so useless, so pointless, staring out the window watching Arkanis’ cycles of almost ceaseless rain. She had waited alone before, but this time it grated. 

Rey felt lonely.

The second story room she had been given was large, plain and comfortable. Food was plentiful, delivered three times a day, along with a change of clothes, by a limping, older man who bowed and stayed silent, avoiding all of Rey’s attempts at conversation. 

Maybe his reluctance to interact had something to do with the fact that the General had left her chained to the large bed when they had arrived. Rey could still picture General Hux’s pale, drawn face as he had padlocked her leash to the heavy bed post. It had been a look of pure hatred. Every second she spent with him only re-enforced her opinion the First Order officer. A rude, aggressive and cruel man. 

How she wanted to make him squirm.

However, after leaving her chained up Rey hadn’t seen the General since. She assumed he was in one of the rooms adjacent to hers. Their proximity bracelets had a short range and she could smell cigarette smoke every time she opened the window.

Rey had pulled the emergency release pin on her slave collar as soon as she had been left alone. She had spent hours exploring the room thoroughly, always aware that the door could spring open and General Hux could swoop in to catch her snooping. Inch-by-inch she had inspected every nook and cranny, going as far as to unscrew the plumbing and climb up to inspect the tops of the window pelmets. 

The General never came. It annoyed her to be so utterly ignored, even though she hated the thought of his insipid features and his grim voice ordering her about.

After a while she gave up exploring. The most interesting thing Rey had found was a dog eared young adult paperback in the back of a cupboard; she had pulled it out from where it had fallen, jammed between the sliding doors, and straightened the folded cover. 

The book was called _Roger Starr: Galactic Hero _by Judge Lewis. On the cover of the book were three teenage boys, all humanoid, all with matching haircuts and wearing old fashion grey looking cadet uniforms. The trio looked like they had just opened a glowing box and whatever was inside made them look sinisterly surprised.__

____

__

She had spent her second day of enforced home-stay reading the book. After five chapters of detailed star cruiser battles (each one lovingly recreated in a shot-by-shot account), then three more on a game of Dejarik (Roger Starr won), the book ended with an elaborate medal ceremony and lettuce sandwich for everyone. She flipped back to the start and stared at the novel cover again with a frown. 

Was that it? 

The third morning she read _Roger Starr: Galactic Hero _again, sure she had missed something.__

____

____

She had, at page 102, Starr described a fishing trip he'd once been on. The plot thickened. 

By the afternoon of the third day Rey realised she had been re-reading book twelve of a series for the third time, and that she was craving a lettuce sandwich.

She couldn’t take it anymore.

Rey drew her arm back and threw the book as hard as she could. It hit the wall with a satisfying thump. A cup soon followed it smashing satisfyingly. Next a plate, its demise was loud as it disintegrated hitting the bathroom tiles.

Rey calmly flicked back her blonde hair, adjusted her shirt sleeves and stood behind the bedroom door.

It burst violently open. The General stalked inside fists in balls his face red with rage. 

Then it fell comically into a look of open mouth surprise like a big, orange goldfish, when he saw the empty bed. 

He rearranged the crumpled blankets, picked up the empty leash, dropped it and then looked at his proximity bracelet.

As he looked down Rey stepped out and shoved him from behind knocking the General prone onto the bed before snapping the slave collar around his neck. She sat on his back but he easily threw her off. She bounced away to the corner of the room as he sprung to the floor. He yanked at the chain and the bed creaked solidly.

Rey drove the point of the knife the General usually kept up his sleeve into the top of a bureau. He hadn't been wearing his blaster.

“Now you are my slave,” she told him a smug look on her face.

General Hux pulled at the chain more urgently then he clawed at the collar.

“I will kill you for this,” he yelled his voice cracking with anger, little flecks of spit hissed from his snarling lips. “Tara fucking take this off me right now!”

“You left me here to rot.”

“I sent you food, you have heat, clothes. It's hardly a prison.”

“You wanted me to use a bucket for a toilet,” Rey picked up the offending article and threw it at him. He covered his face and it bounced off his arms before smashing into a table lamp.

His eyes twitched and she could see his ears practically glowing in rage. Her inner Rey clapped excitedly, but outwardly she kept a cool head. It would be foolish to underestimate the man.

Rey bit her lip as if studying the situation. “I may consider setting you free if you follow my orders.”

“I swear Tara I'm going to...”

“You do know how to follow orders don't you? She interrupted him while she wiggled his knife deeper into to bureau. “I assume you didn't become something as important as a General through your charm.”

He stared at her arrogantly, his hands still uselessly strained at the chain as he stood next to the bed. 

“Take off your jacket,” she told him.

He jerked off his jacket.

“Now your shirt.”

He balked at that, his eyes like narrow death rays.

Then he slowly unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it out of his pants waistband, and took it off, throwing it at her. 

Rey took a moment to appraise his physique, her eyes traveled across his skin, mimicking his appraisal of herself on his ship. Although slender he was well defined, with a little trail of reddish blonde hair peppered across his chest and circling his nipples. She watched him blush at her long, hard evaluation.

“Now you look like a slave. A very bad slave…”

There was a timid knock on the door.

Rey calmly walked over and opened it. The now familiar servant wheeled in dinner, pausing to adjust the tray and twist a teacup into alignment. The old man straightened and looked at his employer shirtless and chained to a bed.

The three of them stared at each other wordlessly before Rey smiled.

“Did you bring it?” She asked.

The server nodded and turned to the General, bowing before exiting.

Rey took her time pouring tea.

“Now you get punished,” she stirred in a spoonful of sugar.

“What are you going to do to me?” The General’s chin lifted definitely and Rey blinked at him half naked and vulnerable. 

She watched him breathing, how his chest flexed, the way his shoulders moved. “Oh, you are going to suffer.” 

“Can I have a smoke?” 

“No, you are going to need all your breath for what I have in store for you.” She sipped her tea as he launched himself at her trying desperately to attack, but the chain was too short, his splayed fingers couldn’t quite make contact.

“Sit on the bed,” she ordered clipping her tone to military snap, and to her surprise he obeyed, perching awkwardly.

On the serving tray was a rectangle under a piece of cloth. Rey peeped under and pulled out her torture device. 

Volume one of _Roger Starr: Galactic Hero. ___

____

____

She threw it on the bed where General Hux picked it up gingerly between finger and thumb.

“Start reading,” she ordered.

“What?”

I said start reading or you'll be stuck here forever.

He slowly turned to page one and sat in silence.

“Out loud,” Rey demanded settling on a pillow on the floor.

_Roger Starr: Galactic Hero _volume one was a short origin story. Rey was already familiar with the all-male cast of characters, but she nodded happily through the General’s low, monotone reading which he punctuated with deep sighs each time he had to turn a page.__

____

____

Learning of Starr’s hopes and dreams of becoming an officer in the Galactic Empire, the General described how Roger was especially enamored with the thought of protecting the universe from the twin dangers of illegal smuggling and preachy environmental issues. 

Occasionally the General sarcastically held up the black and white illustrations for her to study. It took under an hour to finish. Rey suspected he had skipped a lot. 

“But why?” Rey asked.

“Why what?”

“I don't understand how anyone would read these books, but it says here,” she held up her issue of volume twelve, that she’d rescued from the floor. “Over 4 billion copies sold.”

“It was written for nine year old boys thirty years ago not, whatever you are.”

“Something interesting must happen?”

“Everything interesting happens! Mystery, space travel, Dejarik, speeder chases, betrayal, triumph over adversity… fishing.”

“You've read these?” 

The General picked his jacket off the floor and riffled through the pockets. He lit a cigarette and sat cross legged on the bed, shrugging at her as he inhaled. 

As Rey opened her volume twelve again she noticed in grey, wobbly cursive the name ‘Armitage’ was written on the fly sheet.

“Armitage,” she said his name softly running a finger over the faded lead pencil. “This is yours?” 

He didn’t answer. The cigarette smoke started to make her throat itch. Rey padded over to the window and opened it. Rain spattered inside, large drops wetting her face and hands.

“Scientists say there’s sixty types of rain on Arkanis.” Armitage told her as he looked out the window sourly. “That looks like number fifteen. Large drops, light fall, no lightening, no thunder.”

“Sixty types of rain,” Rey repeated as she touched a drop on her cheek.

“I suppose watching rain isn’t that interesting and I suppose,” Armitage smoked harder. “A boy could possibly read novels in the hope of one day doing something... more.”

Rey walked to the bed just out of arms reach.

Armitage rubbed at his slave collar, she could see his pale skin turning red under the tight pressure.

“If I take that off you promise you won’t make me wear it anymore. I want us to be,” she searched for the right word. “Civil.”

He held his smoke in his mouth and put a hand over his chest. “Promise,” he mumbled through the clenched paper.

Rey knew he was lying, but it was better he learned now who was in charge.

“Kneel,” she ordered. Her fuming prisoner rolled his body into position on the edge of the mattress. 

“Put your hands on your head.”

“Don’t be so…” He bit his tongue and reluctantly obeyed. Rey twisted a section of hair around a curled finger as Armitage’s chest squared out, his pecks flexing. She considered making him do more tricks for his freedom.

“Hurry up,” Armitage grit, his fingers interlaced behind his head. The chain slid in the sheets.

Rey moved within reach of his body, running a exploring finger along his chest. He curled away from her touch. It took a second to release the collar. It fell with a soft clink.

Armitage snapped his arms down. “You are a fool,” he scoffed as he pulled her onto the bed.

Rey let him pin her. He sat astride her hips holding down her arms under his large, slightly sweaty hands. She could feel his knees on each side of her, squeezing her thighs, a grinding pressure. Rey watched him fill with exultation that he had successfully got the better of her.

“Armitage,” she cooed as his face twisted close to her own.

“Don’t call me that!” He shook her.

“Tage,” she smiled, chin tilted up, eyes half closed.

Armitage brought his lips inches from her ear. “I’m going to make you wish you were never born,” he hissed.

Rey opened her mouth, her bottom lip brushed against his slightly stubbled cheek dragging softly on his skin. 

He held his breath.

Rey’s tongue poked pinkly from her parted lips. 

Licking him right in the eye socket. 

A hard, soggy lick wedged so she could taste his eye lashes flickering like startled butterflies against her tongue.

Armitage sat up instantly, he pressed a palm to his face as he recoiled. “You licked my eye! My fucking eye Tara! You are some sort of animal, who does that?”

Rey pushed him off her as he pawed at his face. His cigarette had been dropped long ago, it was slowly burning a black hole through the beautiful bedspread.

“Tage, this is why you can’t have nice things,” she picked up the butt and tossed it in the fallen pee bucket. 

Lying on the bed Rey watched Armitage angrily put on his shirt and jacket. He retrieved his knife and stowed it away. His hair was mussed, his face flushed, it made him look less like an anal retentive tyrant and more like an anal retentive, socially inept weirdo. He stormed to the door and opened it.

“Armitage?” Rey propped her chin on her hands.

“You will address me as General Hux **slave **.”****

********

********

“I’m going to visit you tomorrow Armitage.”

“If you enter my room I will shoot you in the face.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have ever been licked on the eye you know it is a form of torture.
> 
> https://nervoustouchdammitcarol.tumblr.com/image/172366760930


	4. AH SUX BALLS

“Didn’t you just have a cigarette?”

Armitage shrugged as his lighter clicked and flicked up its yellow flame, sparking on the paper. “I’m going to die of something.” 

She watched him, engrossed in what he worked on, he inhaled deeply while staring at his comm screen. The blue light reflected on his pale skin making him look even more angular and washed-out as he hunched towards an overflowing ashtray. 

Rey had never felt the need to self-medicate. In her life she had, many times, been sad or angry. She had felt the empty desperation of loneliness and the strangling pressure of hopeless. Rey wondered if an obviously wealthy, well-educated man could ever even imagine half the hardships she had endured. Still, she had fought on. How strange he should choose to slowly poison himself when he had so many advantages.

“I’ve spent most of my life trying not to die.”

Armitage turned and wafted a slow smoke cloud in her direction as he glared.

Waving volume two of _Roger Starr: Galactic Hero _Rey fanned away the growing mass of choking smoke particles that were filling the room. Armitage had made it abundantly clear that she was unwelcome in his company and yet here she was, face intact, seated comfortably near one of the most abhorrent men in the galaxy. Also she was getting slowly tortured by smoke inhalation.__

____

____

At least she was a little closer to whatever he was doing. Rey spent a great deal of time looking up from her book to peek at his screen. She had already memorised his login code.

**MILLICENT**

All capital letters of course. Why speak normally when you can yell your password? Rey wondered who the mysterious Miss. Millicent was. Did he have a wife somewhere? 

She shivered at the thought, it was probably some poor woman stuck in space supervising droids starching black jackets and thinking up ways to feign headaches.

Rey had only spent seven days in the same house as him and he was already insufferable. Being stuck with him for life would be reason to jump off the roof. If the money wasn’t so lucrative, the opportunity to spy not so good and, without the real need for the factory to be built on Nal Hutta, Rey would have already left. She had to keep reminding herself of all the supplies she could buy the Resistance with her payout. 

Number one on her list of First Order funded necessities; she would treat herself to one of those rich people spas where they scrape off a layer of skin. It would be the only way to get clean after her ordeal with the General ended.

Rey twisted her proximity bracelet and he nudged his own as if he was subconsciously a reflection in a mirror.

If only he wasn’t so angry all the time. She honestly wanted to find out what made the General tick, but Armitage remained an enigma. He steadfast ignored her, or stared at her like she was some sort of deranged sideshow, there was no in between, no softness and no attachment. A clinical relationship of two opposites mashed together by fate.

Any attempt at conversation always seemed to disintegrate into bickering. Armitage may not have shot her yet, but it wasn’t for lack of wanting to. That he hadn’t done it probably had more to do with getting the blood stains out of his snowy white carpet than any reluctance to pull the trigger.

She walked over to his balcony door and peered outside. It was raining, it was always raining. Rey reminded herself that there was sixty types of rain on this watery planet. She had been trying to tell the difference, but so far she had worked out light rain, heavy rain and that hour it didn’t rain where everyone in the house went outside and talked excitedly about when it would rain next. Except she didn’t get to talk. Rey got to stand on Armitage’s bedroom balcony and listen to people talk below her. 

Still, at least it wasn’t sand. It somehow seemed a little scandalous that some planets got all rain and some none, if only there was a sort of pan-galactic pipe system to even everything out. She watched the rain drops race and merge on the window, slowing to spots. Her warm breath fogged the glass and she wrote.

A.H SUX BALLS 

In big looping letters. Her finger squeaked making Armitage sigh and hunch depressingly closer to his screen.

As luck would have it, the clouds were thinning and Rey was hopeful they would have a storm break. She knew why everyone on the planet ran outside at the first sign of sunlight, seeing the sun was like emerging from an eternal twilight. Sparkling.

“The sun is coming out,” Rey announced.

He didn’t answer, just sat at his work station ignoring her.

“Come outside with me?”

Still no answer.

“Armi-tage,” she trilled in a sing-song voice.

“You can go, we don’t have to stay that close,” he tapped a little more at his work. “And I’ve told you, don’t call me that Tara. I didn’t go through a decade of officer training to have a slave call me by my first name.”

For some reason she wanted to make him do what she wanted, it was that petty streak of stubbornness that kept flaring up. Enough of this room, this oppressive time dragging onwards and enough of the fucking smoke. It choked, her head hurt and she was feeling out of sorts. If Rey had to feel terrible she wasn’t going to be alone, especially if she could take such a well-schooled First Order general down with her.

Easy enough to annoy the General, he was an open book. Everything bothered him. Rey opened the balcony door wide as it could slide, letting the cool air enter the room. The wind blew the curtains and soft furnishings, a pile of papers fluttered across the floor. Armitage’s jacket, draped perfectly square over his chair, swirled and his cigarette tin clattered to the floor.

“Tara, close the fucking door.” 

“Make me.”

Armitage stood, his face set in its usual scowl, and stomped over to the nasty slave standing in the doorway. Nudging her non-too gently he man-handled her by the shoulders out onto the balcony, just as the sun broke through the fast moving clouds. Below, in awed voices, the few enraptured staff of the Hux family mansion were loudly wondering when the next storm would be.

“Don’t close me out here or I’ll scream,” Rey threatened.

“I hate you,” he answered quietly staring at her. Being intimidating, looking intimidating, it was like his default setting. “Why are you bothering me? Why…” He stopped and touched her face as the sun bathed them in a pinkish glow. His thumb brushed the wispy hair over her ear. Rey raised her hand but before she could slap him away 

Armitage turned around suddenly, leaving her to return to his desk.

Odd, she wondered. Maybe he had some sort of allergy to sunshine. Rey wondered if there was enough space to exercise, she stretched up then walked to the balcony railing, stepping up on the bottom rung and leaning out to feel the rare sun on her skin, scattering the clinging water drops under her hands. Armitage had left the balcony door open, good, let him freeze, it would air out the room. After the allotted hour of Winterish sunshine Rey felt the mist of rain on her cheeks and reluctantly went back into the room.

Only to see the black muzzle of a blaster shoved in her face. 

“Tara?” Armitage barked at her, his voice heavy with sarcasm. The gun wavered slightly as he spoke. “I don’t know who’s more stupid, me for not realising sooner, or you for thinking you would ever get away with it.”

Rey started to raise her hands.

“Don’t even think about it, that shit doesn’t work on me. Kylo Ren has been trying to get inside for years.” He pushed the blaster closer and she could hear it humming against her cheek. Behind his tensed body was her bounty picture on his display, next to the still photo she could see herself moving, a clear series of security tape pictures taken from Starkiller Base. 

Rey swallowed dryly. “I wasn’t going to use the force on you.” It was true; she hadn’t even thought about it, yet, raising her hands had been an instinct, a show of submission.

“Shut up. You are going straight to him. Sit.”

She sunk down.

“Armitage, I understand this looks bad, unbelievably bad, but you can’t send me to that monster. You’ll lose the bet.”

“One more word, just one word, and I really will shoot you in the face.”

She snapped her mouth shut and glared.

With his gun still trained at Rey he tapped at his comm unit. When an efficient sounding voice answered he asked for a private line to the Supreme Leader.

Rey turned away to stare at the rain. Maybe this was a new type. She wished it was some kind of acid to dunk the General in. One that would melt him into lumps of jagged bone.

Getting hold of Kylo Ren seemed to be a complicated process, even for General Hux, commander of the stormtrooper armed forces. It took what felt like an excruciatingly long amount of time as she sat in awkward silence, gun in her face, before she heard the deep, familiar buzz of the Supreme Leader’s voice from inside his helmet. 

“What do you want?” Was Kylo Ren’s pleasant greeting to the General.

“Supreme Leader, I…”

“You’ve got that contract signed?”

“No, I…”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

Rey heard the distinct beep of an ended conversation and the hiss of empty airwaves.

Ever so slowly she reached for a jug of water on a nearby table. She poured two glasses. Rey sipped one and sighed, forcing herself to relax.

“He’s a fucking idiot,” Armitage fumed.

She sensed his anger had shifted to new target. Disgust was written all over his face.

Rey took grasped her chance. “I hate him.”

“Why?” Armitage pressed a finger to his twitching eye. The proximity bracelet jarred against his chin.

“He’s so demanding and clingy and he just can’t take ‘no’ as an answer. Also he…”

“I don’t care why you hate Kylo Ren. Why are you here? Why are you doing this to me?”

It was a fair way to start the conversation, Rey had to admit the situation didn’t look good. 

“It wasn’t my plan to be here. I honestly didn’t know Hakka was going to make me have to stay with you for a month. The bet was something he put to together last minute and he made me think it was going to be pod racing. I was supposed to be,” she swirled her hand making his trigger finger tense. “Only watching the contract being signed. But then it got complicated, we were both tricked by the Hutts.”

“Why does the Resistance want to be involved with a First Order land purchase on Nal Hutta?”

“You know I can’t tell you.”

He banged the table with his free hand. Her cup jumped, scuttling noisily. Rey prodded at her proximity bracelet, she made herself calm and crossed her legs as if to prove she didn’t care one hoot about his interrogation prospects.

“I can’t tell you,” she repeated firmly.

“Then I will make you tell me.”

Rey held back the sudden urge to grin at his deadly serious threat. She doubted Armitage could make her do anything. Maybe the Supreme Leader Kylo Ren could. Maybe. He was another kettle of fish, an evil, force wielding, mind bending player. But Armitage? Please. She internally rolled her eyes. Pretending she hadn’t been shaken up by having a gun shoved up her nose.

“Can’t we just live out our month together and move on? Forget this ever happened. We only have three weeks.”

“Stand up and turn around,” the General growled his voice cutting and clear.

Rey stood ever so slowly and turned, she faced his canopied bed studying the large collection of pillows. The fabric was expensive, the coverings looked warm, a necessity in such a wet climate.

“Wet climate,” she repeated in her mind. Oh, fuck what was wrong with her? It was the rain, all the rain was getting to her.

She felt the muzzle of his blaster in her lower back. Armitage was standing closely behind her.

Was it getting hot in the room? It suddenly became harder to breathe, like someone was pressing on the bone in her chest. 

“Tell me, why are you here?”

“I can’t.”

“Who else knows?”

“Nobody, no one but Hakka and his translator knew who I am. The Resistance knew I was going to observe on Nal Hutta, but they don’t know where I am now. I knew they wouldn’t let me take the risk. Armitage, right now I am no threat to you.”

Outside the new storm picked up, the rain spattered against the glass. A flash of lightening flicked, throwing a millisecond of white light around the room. The shadows suddenly stark as the outline of two people pressed close flicked across the bed.

“What number rain is this?” Rey asked, trying to keep her voice light.

“Number forty-two, rain after a brief break, medium-heavy, with lightening. No thunder.”

His breath felt warm on the back of her neck.

“What are you going to do to me?” Rey closed her eyes, waiting for him to speak. Out of the corner of her eye she could see his reflection on the door to the balcony, she watched him raise his hand as if to clasp her arm, but he hovered, fingers outstretched, before dropping it to his side. The gun twisted hard on her spine.

“From now on I’m not letting you out of my sight. You don’t get to have your own room anymore. There will be no opportunity for sabotage. And after all this, you never speak a word about…” he struggled to find a description.

“Us?” 

“There is no us, you are nothing more than a task, just a job to complete. I will find out your plan and it will be unsuccessful. If you try anything, any of your magic mumbo-jumbo, I’ll happily give you to Kylo Ren on a fucking platter. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“Say it Rey from Jakku. Say ‘I understand General’.”

“I understand Armitage.”

He slowly put his blaster back in its holster and they were so close she could almost feel his chest rise and fall in a sigh of frustration. 

“You are very lucky; I too have an extreme distaste our Supreme Leader. He is a useless, emotional wreck, a money pit of bad ideas and worst of all he couldn’t lead an army out of a paper bag. However, I have no doubt, he will kill me if he finds out you were here.”

“We have something in common then.”

Rey turned to face Armitage, she looked up at him relieved that they could move on. Even though she could so easily take his blaster and shoot him. Or fling a chair at his back or choke his pretty neck to a strangled mess. There were one hundred other ways to get free, but she didn’t do one of them.

“Your dark hair is growing out,” Armitage touched above Rey’s ear again. “You shouldn’t tie it back, it gives you away.” He pulled out her twisted hairband, it slid slowly out, before peeling away leaving her hair to sway across her shoulder; it fell over one eye. 

“You look better blonde Rey from Jakku.”

The lightning lit up the room again. Their shadows embraced on the bed, overlapping into one.

“Truce?” Rey asked.

“For now,” he answered quietly and leaned forward.

The way he looked, his closeness, Rey was sure he wanted to kiss her. She had to do this, to show he could trust her. It wasn’t that she wanted to do it. It wasn’t that she liked him, because she didn’t. Armitage was right. This was nothing but a job, a mission she had to suffer through. 

She pursed her lips as her tongue curled. Eyelashes dipped, fluttering, the tenseness in her chest expanded, it felt choking. 

Armitage huffed out a tight laugh as he pushed her out of his way. 

“I am not interested in Resistance scum.”

***

The night they had spent in the same bed had been uncomfortable. Extremely so. Even for a soldier who was used to getting little sleep and taking advantage when sleep could be had. The Resistance girl, Rey, was young, she was beautiful. Armitage could admit that. She was pretty in the way that some men may overlook, but he could see the advantage. 

And she was maddening. Always there, always talking or looking. He could feel her eyes on him as he worked. If he looked up it was like an invite for her to talk and ask questions. He didn’t believe a word of anything she said, yet still she talked. But he was no story book, he was no exhibit. 

Armitage stood under the shower wanting her to join him yet terrified she’d try. Again maddening. He just had to keep moving, one step at a time. Keep working, keep her away, but not too far. Already he had let go too much, he had been compromised even listening to her endless musing. Worse and worse he continued. They continued. It was like walking slowly towards danger.

Should he consider doing something to break whatever spell he was under? He imagined what little effort it would take to hold her down and… get it all out of his system.

He watched the locked door as the hot water rolled off his body. He should just do it. She kept touching him. Even when she slept she moved and moved and he kept retreating like a fool.

He shut off the water and half dressed. She wanted to see him shirtless, then she could watch. Armitage avoided looking at himself in the mirror as he automatically combed his hair back into stiff streaks of red. 

It had been so long, so long since he’d fucked a real woman. Not his hand, not a droid.

However he had no wish to be killed. Then he smiled. How good it was to have something Kylo Ren wanted. Something the Supreme Leader wanted so bad the reward doubled almost daily. And he had it. How ironic. If Ren had just acted like less of a fool, but then that was impossible. Armitage imagined one day he would hold it over his head. He would describe Rey in her slave girl outfit, the way she felt between his legs. 

Today he should talk to her, if only to get the information he needed. She seemed to like endlessly chattering and cheap children’s novels. 

Where was she getting them all from anyway?

What else did he know about Rey? She was from Jakku, she was a Jedi (he had no wish to talk about that) she was part of the Resistance and she, she… hated Kylo Ren. Armitage realized he didn’t really want to know anymore, it was too much already. It was too much to be so close to anyone. He needed space, personal space. Why did he insist she stay with him? It was stupid. And here he was alone anyway, with her in the same room as all his comm equipment.

He’d been in the bathroom too long already. What if she thought he had been, he swallowed… touching himself.

Stalking into the bedroom Armitage pulled on his shirt. Black. Well fitted.

She was sitting at breakfast wearing a matching shirt. One of his shirts. Black. Not so well fitted on her small frame. Armitage’s eye twitched.

“What is your obsession with wearing my clothes?”

She looked up and arched her eyebrows in his direction before returning to her meal. Propped in front of her, leaning on a salt shaker, was book three of _Roger Starr: Galactic Hero _. The General noticed she’d poured his caf and served a hot roll onto his plate. He sat at his place setting and sipped. It tasted just the way she had made it for him before, when she had been nothing but a slave girl. It was just the way he liked it. She was infuriating. Somehow a Resistance criminal knowing how he liked his caf felt like an insult.__

____

____

Armitage buttered his roll and made up his mind to interrogate her. To break this foolish attachment. Opening his mouth he looked at her.

Rey was wearing his peaked First Order hat and pretending to read. The hat he exclusively wore for special occasions.

“It never ceases to amaze me how juvenile you are.”

“I like your hat, I’m going to wear it and you can’t”

“I can.”

“No, you can’t.”

He drank his caf.

“Yes, I can, I could make you do whatever I want. I could make you eat that hat.”

She put a cigarette in her mouth. 

“You look like an imbecile,” he growled and ate his bun as she sat turning pages and pretending to smoke.

“I’m trying to make you smile,” Rey teased. “I don’t want another day of sulking.”

He opened his mouth again to argue with her, she was so incredibly… instead of fighting he got out his lighter. Bending across the table he put his fist near her face and lit her cigarette.

“Breathe in,” he ordered.

After she inhaled she started coughing, smoke whooshing in wavering jets. She immediately pulled the offending article out of her mouth and pinched the bridge of her nose. 

“It tastes worse than it smells, how can you?” Rey gasped pulling a face.

Armitage plucked it out of her hand and put it in his own mouth. His lips touching where her lips had just been, he smiled at Rey. A thin jeer.

“Can we…” but her question was never asked because there was a loud knock at the bedroom door.

He let her answer it. The hat was still perched perkily on Rey’s loose blonde hair, his shirt swung loose and un-tucked over her thighs. He had never seen his uniform so abused.

Armitage expected it would be the servant at the door to clean up. But soon his eyes widened in horror, as he listened to an all too familiar and hated voice.


	5. Two Generals

As Rey tipped the cup towards her lips the teabag inside slapped sideways and liquid slopped over her chin. It drooled, a stream of brown, down her neck. Why hadn't she taken out the teabag? She knew keeping it in meant her tea always spilt when she tried to swallow the last mouthful. The mess slid down between her breasts and disappeared under the First Order officer’s shirt she had ‘borrowed’ out of the Generals wardrobe. Rey scrubbed her chin with the back of her hand and felt like a slob.

Armitage closed his eyes as if sending out a silent prayer. However, it wasn't as if the fact she still hadn't learned to drink from a cup properly was the most awkward event at the breakfast table.

Ex-General Brendol Hux was an imposing man. Even partly paralyzed he commanded a room’s full attention. She had felt kindly towards him at first, an old man with two sticks and a slight droop to his face. This feeling didn’t last very long.

Rey had thought Armitage was bad, but Brendol was worse, so, so much worse. He was cutting like an acid spitting blade, he was loud, insensitive and completely obsessed with the First Order.

Armitage had sat silently as his father had berated him for not seeing him on his arrival, for not keeping him informed, for bringing guests and not introducing them, (Rey had squirmed uneasily through that tirade) for the loss of Starkiller base and the state of the galaxy overall. Rey had reluctantly kept her mouth shut as Brendol heaped praise on Supreme Leader Kylo Ren; and she had diligently concentrated on eating as he claimed the increase of women in the armed forces was leading the Order to bad end. She was really quite proud of restraining herself – up until the tea incident.

In all his raging Rey noticed that Brendol Hux did not have a single positive syllable to say about of his own son. 

Rey had a sneaky suspicion she was beginning to feel sympathy for Armitage, who seemed to take the constant stream of nagging in his stride. 

“You still haven't introduced me,” Brendol barked at his son. 

Armitage frowned. “This is my... this is Tara. She is from Jakku.”

Did Rey sense a slight twinge of venom in announcing her planet of origin? Sure enough, Brendol Hux’s face scowled at the mention of Jakku.

He motioned to his father while narrowing his eyes at Rey. “General Hux Senior.”

“You are an officer?” He asked Rey, eyeing her black shirt. She had removed the hat after Brendol entered the room, however he had seen the evidence. It still sat on the bed, a forlorn black creature.

“No sir.”

“I see,” the two words were heavy with implied meaning.

Rey twisted under the old man’s gaze pulling at her shirt sleeve, making sure the proximity bracelet didn't show.

Armitage lit another cigarette. Brendol had already made his thoughts on smoking very clear.

“Put that out, you'll stain the ceiling. Inconsiderate, ungrateful!”

Armitage stared at a spot on the wall behind Rey’s head. She wriggled in her chair as the smoke curled towards her. She was determined not to cough, it was some bizarre stand against Brendol Hux to not seem affected.

Turning back to Rey, Brendol asked, “How long will you stay Tara?”

“Three more weeks, Sir.”

She felt Armitage kick her shin under the table. She hid her gasp of pain by knocking her book on the floor. Leaning over she gave Armitage the stink eye. In reply he put his foot over the book so she couldn’t pick it up without a struggle.

“That long? Aren't you in the middle of a campaign at Vodran? You left your soldiers to take a holiday? You always were self-centered. You should know your first, and only, duty is to the Order, is to fighting for the future glory. No wonder Kylo Ren became Supreme Leader over you,” Brendol paused and his voice grew quiet. “You are too busy with whores.” 

Rey popped up from where she was yanking at her book. “Excuse me?” She squeaked her eyes narrowing.

Brendol Hux ignored her.

The spot on the wall became infinitely important stay focused on for Armitage.

“I am not a whore. And you know what, even if I was, how dare you,” she jabbed a finger at him. “Use that tone. How dare you insult your son. Armitage is by far superior to Kylo Ren, you evil, old…”

Brendol cut through her protests with a heavy fist pounded on the table. “You are a whore, a cheap one if you really are from Jakku, and your opinion is of very little interest to me. Stay silent.”

Armitage cleared his throat.

_Don't bother arguing _, his passing glance told Rey. It stung slightly that he didn't defend her, but she could fight her own battles.__

Brendol Hux turned back to his son. He started to berate him again around the events at Starkiller Base, stepping through the actions taken, pointing out the many things he would have done better. Rey sat in silence and found her own uncomfortable spot to stare at.

“You weren't there,” Armitage drawled quietly.

“What?” 

“I said, you weren't there. I'm sure if you had been it would have gone smoothly, just like on Jakku.” 

Rey could have cut the air with dull knife.

Brendol, unaffected by the tension in the room, returned to berating his son. “The First Order needs strong leaders, not indolent, weak-willed administrators.”

“It was a stormtrooper who trained with _your _reprogramming methods who defected and led the Resistance into Star Killer Base.”__

____

____

“I made strong soldiers, there was only one that ever failed me and it wasn't a stormtrooper.” 

Rey felt uncomfortable. She somewhat relished torturing Armitage, but the scene imploding in front of her was making her seethe with guilt. She watched Armitage’s hand slowly spin his cigarette case, otherwise he was almost a picture of calm. Above the table he was stone, below… 

She slid her hand over his wrist, cupping his clawed hand as it dug into his leg. Armitage jerked his arm away.

**

He didn't want pity, it was embarrassing enough that she was here. It was the rebel scum's fault he had to come to this stupid planet, he should have picked anywhere else to stay, but he had come here. It had seemed like a good idea when she had been chained to her bed, but now she was like a tractor beam sucking up trouble as she moved. 

Rey poured him another caf looking ridiculous in his shirt. Her hair was unbridled, her face covered in breakfast. She did look like a cheap prostitute. If only she had enough common sense to go back to her own room, but that would be too much to ask for. He didn’t want his father to see any weakness. To think he needed the support of anyone. General Hux could fight his own battles and this battle he had fought all his life. It was a sick tradition by now.

Rey’s attentions to his son did not, however, go unnoticed by his father.

“He killed his cat you know,” Brendol informed her.

Stiffening Armitage swallowed dryly, he felt his ears burning. Rey looked understandably confused.

“Shot it in the head; his own pet. I wouldn't get too attached if I were you.”

This insult was the last straw. “Did you come here for any reason in particular?” Armitage finally broke, snapping at Brendol.

“I don't like them,” his father hissed.

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“The people you send, they don't listen. You choose them on purpose, you send the worst staff. They are like criminals, I'm sure they are stealing and they don’t stay, they rush out. They poke me. I have to call three times to get anyone, anyone to come.”

Ah, inside Armitage felt happy at his father’s complaint. That was the reason for this unwanted visit, he was upset with his nursing staff. A common grievance since the old man had become ill. Good. Let him know what it’s like to have to suffer.

“If you didn't drive all the good ones away you wouldn't be left with the dregs. Unless you want droid only, and that didn't work very well last time. Do you remember the nursing droid incident? The robots literally committed a bizarre digital suicide apparently. So now you have to take what is available.”

Brendol folded his arms. “He poisoned me you know?”

Rey opened her mouth and looked at Armitage.

“He had a stroke before I could even attempt it.”

“I did not. It was poison. I was fine one day and then I couldn't talk. You did it, you always wanted to. Weak-willed!” Another thump at the table, the tableware jumped and clattered.

“I am not going to argue about it. If you have finished please leave. I’ll call for help.”

Brendol Hux stood. He took his two walking sticks looking frail again, a grey smudge of a being. “I don't need help,” he shuffled to the door, and Rey dashed up to open the door as Armitage stood, obviously not wanting to assist.

The older General looked over Rey again. She smiled, a fake flutter of lips. 

“I want her, she can nurse,” Brendol leaned awkwardly close to Rey. As the old man moved forward, she moved back until she had nowhere else to go. Rey looked at Armitage pleadingly. Armitage wondered how the man had ever seduced anyone. Even though he was the sad evidence something had once occurred.

“No!” They both said at the same time.

Brendol Hux, still leering obnoxiously close to Rey, spoke, his voice loud enough for his son to hear. “He's weak, and a bastard, and useless.”

Armitage turned, unwilling to participate anymore.

“I disagree,” Rey quietly informed Brendol. 

He heard the click as the door firmly closed behind his father. 

“What?” He growled between clenched teeth as he felt a curious hand on his back. “Go away.”

Armitage felt the disappointment that filled every moment of the fucking disaster that was his life as her hand hovered. Unbearable. She was so unbearable! Everything was her fault. He went outside slamming the balcony door. The rain wasn't heavy. The cigarette calmed him. He sucked at it trying to focus on his breath.

Number fourteen he noticed absently feeling splashes of water. 

He tried to ignore Rey as she again slid beside him. She was wearing her own clothes again. Soft colours had returned to her body instead of the crumpled black.

“Do you ever shower?”

She seemed unaffected by his comment. “Of course, sometimes, I guess I just never got into the habit. I washed my hands.” She held them up in front of his face.

“You disgust me.”

“Well, I never felt happy before about not having parents.”

It wasn't something he never wanted to talk about so he didn't. She wouldn't understand anyway, but then his mind wandered.

“I did kill my cat,” he told her defiantly. “I had too. I couldn't leave her here with him.” 

She put her hand on his wrist again resting on his proximity bracelet. 

“Something you can laugh about with your Resistance friends.”

Rey said nothing, just stood and listened.

“She was... she was orange, a tabby. I found her when I was around eleven.” 

“What happened?”

“We used to have a maid who kept her in the kitchen a lot of the time. The maid lost her job. The other staff knew better, that anything I wanted is nothing he wants. The General doesn't keep staff very long. I had to go away to school. She was old when I got her.”

He frowned, his eye twitched and he stopped it with a stretched finger.

“I'm sorry.”

“I don't care. I don't care what you – feel,” he mocked. “Don't let him in my room again.”

The sun broke through the clouds, flooding the balcony with a faint, brilliant glow, and they heard people outside. Armitage squinted into the distance.

“Oh my, I wonder when it will rain,” a voice drifted up.

Rey sighed. “Want to go for a walk?”

***

The garden was becoming sadly overgrown, the branches of the trees bowed low over ponds and creeks crisscrossing between islands of water loving grasses. Things never changed here though, never truly. He found what he was looking for and pointed at it with the sharp spike of his long, black umbrella.

It was a round, white stone with an ‘M’ carved in it. 

Rey bent and traced the ‘M’ with a finger. “Millicent?” she asked quietly.

He drew his eyebrows together, trying to sense the press of her Force. Nothing, there was nothing. “How do you know her name?” 

“I watch you type your password when you login.”

He shook his head. What a fool he was. “You are some piece of work Rey from Jakku. Just when I think you have some sense you go and tell your captor you've been spying on him.”

“Did you think I was not?”

Armitage looked off in the distance, hands behind his back, tapping his umbrella against his boot.

“What else is in the garden?” Rey asked popping up next to him.

“Not a lot, ponds, bridges. A stone grotto. It all looks better in dry season. I'm told so anyway.”

He started to walk, their bracelets flashing yellow before Rey could catch up. Why was he even here? Pointless, useless, something that will come back and haunt him. A weakness. Everything his father had said was correct. Except Rey wasn't a whore. He wondered if his father would be more or less disappointed if he knew she was a Resistance fighter? He could hear the squelching footsteps of Rey slowing down and speeding up as she explored around him. He kept a brisk pace and felt that this must be what if felt like to take a toddler outside. She was like a bird set free, yet not free; they were still tethered by an invisible line.

Pushing a sagging branch out of his way he slunk past and let go. Then smiled as he heard her gasp. The cold water droplets flicked her as the branch snapped back into place. She was at least getting cleaner.

Not much further along, he saw the grotto. It had been built by an ancient race hundreds of years ago. The Hux family had liberated it from its quiet forest existence and gentrified it into a kind of designed cave. 

They approached reverently, the stone was old, grey and speckled with a blackish moss. Ferns crowded it, uncurling their pale fronds.

Standing next to the grotto he noticed Rey’s solemn face.

“Afraid?” 

The capping stone was large, it would crush them to a thin smear if it fell.

“It's beautiful. It feels so strange. I can sense its Force. It feels like, like a really old woman who’s waking up. Or a tree, a big tree that has had the middle go all hollow.”

Armitage stepped inside. It smelled like a urinal.

The grotto had carved a stone bench inside. Rey ran a hand along the wall, fingers outstretched. She sat down brushing her boots through the rough sand floor, drawing arches with her heels. Wrinkling his nose Armitage stood straight backed, but at ease. He had been inside the grotto many times. It was nothing but smelly rocks.

“You can see the mountain from here,” he pointed out to a distant peak covered in lush vegetation. Although why he bothered he didn't know. “Used to be a volcano.”

“Is that where the ocean is?” 

“The ocean is behind us.”

“Sit down with me,” Rey invited patting the hard seat beside her. “I'm not that bad.”

“You are,” Armitage stayed standing, looking out into the mist. Feeling the cold air on his face. It was completely different to space. So much more fresh and volatile. 

“I wonder who made this, do you know?”

He noticed a used prophylactic hanging limply in a corner and rolled his eyes. “Some old people, long dead.”

Rey moved, creeping closer, she stood next to him. Always so close. Always so close that part of her touched. A hand, a knee, a shoulder. It started to rain.

“What was it used for?”

“I don't know. A bus stop.”

She laughed, a big laugh. So hard she bent over. “A bus stop,” she repeated as if he’d just told her the most hilarious thing he’d ever heard.

Suddenly, in her odd laughing attack she tripped, he watched as her foot scuffed in a puddle and he instinctively took hold of her arm. With a gasp Rey stayed close to him, pulling at his jacket as he held onto her. The only reason he didn’t let go immediately was to stop the clumsy idiot from toppling over, he told himself. The rain decided to lash sideways and they stepped back together in tandem arms entwined.

Rey smiled up at him and he felt himself blush. “It’s so different to Jakku all this rain. I feel wet all the time,” her arm stiffened. “I mean...”

They both stared at the prophylactic and she laughed again. She moved against him, nestling like a warm firearm recently discharged. Armitage wished he had agreed to sit, it seemed standing caused her to think it was invitation to interact.

“We are waiting for a bus, a bus to the volcano,” Rey told him with shining eyes.

“This is why the Resistance will never win, you spend all your time waiting for pretend buses and acting like idiots. Small minds are amused by small things.”

“This is why the First Order won't win, you spend all your time…” she paused. 

“I can almost see your tiny mind grinding to a halt.”

Rey frowned. “I didn't want to say it in the end. I'm not going to put you down. I don't want to be like… that,” she finished lamely.

Yanking away from her arm Armitage unfurled the umbrella stepping into the rain. 

They only had one, it would mean she'd have to stay close to keep dry. Rey easily kept pace as he made his way back to the house, even as he tried to rush her. 

They both got soaked. 

He felt angry. She had tricked him into compliance. Manipulated him. Just like a Jedi to be underhanded. 

Back at the room Armitage just wanted to get back to work. He would show her how the First Order would win. How dare she try to lessen his shame, she didn’t understand, she didn’t have to live through anything like what he had seen. Instead Rey had been in a warm desert, independent and free. Once the Resistance, and all the other deplorable creatures who resisted, were overthrown he would destroy all her immature ideals and show her the truth. He would show her no pity.

Armitage watched her struggle to take off her wet jacket. Peeling off her outer clothes, Rey’s hair hung in strands of yellow gold. He felt his eye twitch again, his chest still pounded from the sudden exercise.

He should make her take it all off. Strip her bare.

He had the sudden strangled urge to take his own clothes off. Like she could read his mind she turned to help him with his jacket, and he mutely let her tug it away. Hanging it up to dry, she rescued his cigarette tin from the pocket and passed it to him. He took it without grace or thanks and inspected the contents for water damage before putting one between his teeth.

“You can face the wall from now on while I work,” he announced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep thinking of situations for these two to suffer through. Thanks for all the kudos and comments. You crazy kids you.
> 
> Read up on Brendol Hux on Wookieepedia, he was a dick.


	6. Night Markets

His spontaneous command, making his insufferable Resistance guest face the wall as he worked, had lasted one day. 

Armitage soon realised that there was little he could do to enforce the rule, unless he wanted to stand over Rey constantly. He did try at first. He had decided an example needed to be made and a demonstration of power was his only option. Unfortunately, after he had pressed her body against the wall while ordering she turn away, she had quickly turned the tables, and he had found his own cheek forced into the cold plaster of the space next to his bed. It had been embarrassing.

Instead of attempting a second attack, the General had set out to create as many red herrings as he could. He had spent the day at his desk typing out ‘creative’ campaigns for planets the First Order had no interest in. 

However Armitage was finding it hard to concentrate, even when creating ‘fake’ work. 

Rey’s outfit was singularly distracting. Parading around all day behind him, she left him feeling intensely frustrated. She could have left on her sparkly slave underwear and been less exotic. Although, on any other woman what she wore would possibly be average and uninteresting. Her clothes were a simple grey shirt and blue pants. Nothing, absolutely nothing, to get so worked up about. He decided it had to be her actions that were causing him so much tension. It was the way she flitted and rolled around his bed, disheveled and somehow, he twisted at his bracelet as he thought, suggestive? What the fuck was wrong with him? What did she keep blaming everything on? The rain? He could hardly use that as an excuse.

Feeling conflicted, he watched Rey brush her hair in the reflection of his work screen. Armitage’s own face was also mirrored, a furrowed brow, reproaching his creeping. More and more he found his eyes wandered, watching her when she wasn't aware. Studying the way she sat crossed legged in the center of his large, canopied bed as she pretended to read those trashy novels. Then she would roll onto her back, blonde hair tousled across the blankets, and hold the book above her. 

He found himself listening when she wondered out loud about why characters did this or that. Asking his opinion, she’d then discuss even his most curt answers at great length. Armitage sat, wound tight as a spring, waiting for each interruption.

He had never stayed so long in the company of a woman. A thought which depressed him.

Worse and worse, his ridiculous daydreaming was all for nothing. He couldn't even think about fraternizing with her. The infuriating woman was earmarked for another man. 

He had checked the bounty on Rey just this morning; then worried that he had looked at too long and someone might notice. The price on her head kept going up and up. Whole notice boards were dedicated to rumors of where Rey was and who she fraternized with.

Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, the psychotic, over-achieving, idiot, was frantic to discover her whereabouts. Ren wasted all his energy searching for Rey, the fabled last Jedi, just to prove something. All he was really doing was wasting First Order resources. 

Armitage scowled at his reflection. Prissy magic user, Ren had everything given to him, all his life he’d had it easy and sooner or later he would catch up with his Jedi rebel girlfriend. Ren was born under a lucky star. Not like himself; not scratching and scrabbling for everything. Armitage had pulled himself up from being a bastard, hated son to being a lonely, bullied student, fought his way to becoming an officer and now still he was denied control of the First Order, because of favoritism and magic light up swords. 

He tented his fingers, forcing himself to stop wasting his energy on thinking about things he couldn’t change. Instead he rested his elbows on the desk, mesmerized by the reflection of Rey absently brushing her long hair as she read - and his own brooding.

Weren’t the Jedi not supposed to form relationships anyway? How many jokes had he heard about Force users getting tricked into ridiculously saucy situations? Hundreds. Jokes that involved a lot of double entendre and the Jedi character was always misunderstanding the ‘sticky’ situations through their sexual innocence. He sighed. 

“What are you working on?” Rey asked. Her eyes trained to the back of his head.

The General dipped his gaze from her rhythmic hair strokes, focusing on the screen instead of the reflection. “None of your business,” he answered curtly and reached into his jacket.

“No smoking inside please.”

The General put the cigarette in his mouth and reached for a match.

“I’m serious, don't light that in here.”

He lit the match, striking it defiantly and dragged before blowing the smoke in her direction.

Once she realized his disobedience Rey launched herself at him, bouncing over the bed, hairbrush in hand. Snatching the smoldering cigarette out of his mouth she stomped to the balcony doorway and yanked the door open before flicking his smoke over the railing.

He stood up and got calmly pulled out another cigarette. 

“It gives me a headache,” Rey stomped her foot.

“You stand outside. In case you haven’t noticed this is my room.”

She rushed him again growling like a wild thing. He caught her by the wrist as Rey lifted the brush menacingly; while his other hand fell around her waist, halting her assault. She gasped at the contact.

“Stop trying to hit me,” he grit out, managing not to drop the cigarette wedged between his teeth.

Rey moved closer. “Start being a gentleman,” she hissed, and he let go of her wrist.

He let her yank the cigarette out of his mouth and watched it drop on the desk with the brush.

Keeping his hand on her hip he moved his neck, stretching out the kinks of a day spent sitting. She was so small, he could smell her, a sweet haze. She wasn't to be touched, yet, what else was he to do if she kept attacking him. He looked at the brush, it had a flat back like a paddle. His eye twitched.

“I've spent eight days in these rooms, how can you stand it?”

“You had a choice of anywhere, you chose here,” his standard response when she got all whiney about the weather. He knew it annoyed her.

Rey sighed, slumping on his desk. Armitage tried not to think about her buttocks touching where he worked, that his hand still held onto her, that she didn’t seem to mind. He was just keeping her restrained to make sure she didn’t try and hit him. Even if it meant he had to stand ridiculously close.

“Would you like to go out?” he could almost bite out his tongue. If they went out she could be seen. Obviously. He abruptly let go of her and rubbed his face. Collapsing back at his desk his finger stretched out, it touched the hairbrush handle.

“I’d like that.” 

Armitage could see she seemed to perk up the idea. Rey practically wriggled with emotion clasping her hands together with perfect teeth gleaming.

They would go for a walk and it would rain, he thought. It would rain and she would, he ran his palm over the hair brush, get wet again.

“Jeffrey says there's a Night Market nearby, with stalls and food and a band.”

“Who the hell is Jeffrey?” 

“If we go it would be dark and I'll wear a hat and some make up. If you dress less like someone with a stick up their, ahem, ‘assets’ nobody will see us. Fool proof,” she paused, and glanced at his hand on her brush. “If you can handle it.”

He frowned at her. 

“Jeffery is the one who brings us our meals, the older man. Don't you talk to anyone?” 

“Not when I'm harboring the most wanted woman in the galaxy. I don't pay them a lot you know.”

Rey suddenly shuffled closer and put her head on his shoulder. He froze. 

“Night Market,” she dramatically whispered, the words teased his ears as her lips were so close.

The red light on his work screen blinked as if to remind him a Resistance spy was sitting on his desk. And most important of all, she was not to be touched.

Armitage peeled her off his body. He hadn't been to the Night Market since he was a teenager. At least he was old now. Maybe it would be more interesting. 

“Hmmm,” he mumbled feeling uncommitted. He picked his dropped cigarette off her thigh and went out to the balcony. Exhaling he stared at the clouds swirling. 

He might as well just shoot himself in the face right now, save Ren the trouble.

***

Fairy lights twinkled among the high arches of the village Night Market. Because of the almost constant rain the marketplace was like an enormous, long warehouse with open sides. Stalls of all shapes and sizes lined the walkways selling everything from fish to toy stormtroopers. There was no heating so shoppers were rugged up against the damp, but the cold didn’t diminish the visitors. 

Crowds of beings from across the galaxy swelled, hiding the two enemies in their masses. One stepped straight backed and military while the other drifted like a leaf on a breeze. 

Rey peered curiously up at the General watching his stern face. He had insisted on wearing sunglasses, a ridiculous disguise, because wearing sunglasses at night was not suspicious at all. Although, they did cover his enormous eye brows. Did he never trim them? Or did he want to transform into a Wookiee? He seemed so precise with his looks, but sometimes she wondered if it was more routine than vanity. 

She stopped to look at a stall filled with twitting, darting, tiny birds in cages. Armitage sighed heavily for the one millionth time. If sweet baby birds couldn't interest this soldier of the First Order he was a truly lost cause she thought, and grabbed his gloved hand pointing to the nearest cage. 

Little black fluff balls with orange bills peeped, pecking at invisible specks.

“I'd call that one Armitage,” Rey motioned to one puffed-up duckling standing by itself. Eyes half closed, it was being jostled by its more active siblings.

“Looks like it's going to die,” he sniffed.

The store owner glared at him coldly. 

Rey steered him quickly onwards and he watched her looking bored and sullen as she browsed through books. They wandered the huge market, their breath billowing steam in the cold air. The walkways were dotted with young Arkanis Academy student officers walking in groups and pairs, their grey uniforms starched into mini versions of the General’s usual attire. Rey watched them, interested in their affairs, as students laughed behind their hands and shared bags of warm snacks. They young adults bowed ridiculously as they passed one another, calling out to friends and saluting officers who turned blind eyes to their antics. 

Armitage seemed scandalized at each Academy jacket he spied. She could see his head turning to watch boys and girls, his lips a drawn line of mystification.

“We didn't socialize in uniform when I was at school,” he informed her dourly. “We didn’t socialize at all.”

Rey wrapped her arm through his, mimicking a young couple ahead of them. The General paused and pulled himself up, but to her amusement didn't push her off. Her nose felt icy. She contemplated burying it in the soft woolen folds of his jacket arm, but she didn't want to be marched back to the vehicle he had brought her in. 

Around the next corner they heard music, the General’s arm tensed.

“Can we listen to the music?”

“Aren’t you listening now?” Armitage answered.

Ignoring his protests she steered him closer to a large crowd and watched a band playing a range of string instruments and accordions. Women in long colourful skirts spun and tinkled performing a complicated dance. Tiny, shining mirrors were sewn into their veils, casting whirling spots of light. The crowd clapped and whistled as the musicians battled, playing more and more detailed pieces while overlapping the different sounds. To match the music the dance evolved from spinning to jumping to amazingly choreographed hands, moving like waves on the ocean.

Rey turned her shining eyes to the General. “Oh, Armitage, this is so beautiful, have you ever heard such magic?”

“Armitage?” A large man in an apron, overhearing the name turned to look at them. Rey pulled her scarf up and tucked herself slightly behind him. She quietly readied herself for flight.

“It is you, I’d know that hair anywhere,” the strange man clasped the Generals shoulder in a friendly manner as Armitage attempted to push away Rey’s entwined arm. “I should say General these days, am I right?”

“I'm not sure...” Armitage replied as he cleared his throat.

“It's Tian, we went to the Academy together first year. You probably remember me as Barge. The man patted his considerable girth. I left after a few months, you know, I wasn't cut out for the military. Good thing too with all this instability,” Tian realized what he was saying and whistled. “I mean of course the First Order looks like it has everything in hand.”

Armitage gripped at Rey’s arm again, but this time not gently. “I remember now, how are you Tian?”

“Fine Sir, very fine. It has been so long since we have seen you around these parts. I have a food stall at the markets now, very good, very, very good. My dear cousin is watching it, come have some food. Bring your wife.”

Rey couldn't help but smile up at Armitage, his face grew red.

Before Armitage could answer she replied. “We'd love to,” she held out a hand to Tian who shook it warmly. “I am Tara, so good to meet you. I so rarely get to find out more about Armitage’s school days.” 

The General squeezed her arm again, fingers twisting like wires tightening. Let him squirm. That was for trying to make her face the wall.

Tian ushered them to a bright and tidy stall crowded next to other, similar eating spots. He sat them on recycled wood boxes at a small, almost miniscule, table. Serving them fine noodles in broth and talking, talking, talking the entire time.

He reminded Armitage about old classmates, gave advice on what the First Order should do next and showed Rey his children, all five of them in the flesh, big eyed and silent. It seemed Tian’s entire family went about together like a caravan of gypsies. They lined up for their father’s newly found friends as if at role call, the youngest just toddler, her black hair pulled into the tiniest hints of piggy-tails. Rey picked the child up and held the girl, dodging flailing arms and little hands.

She felt wicked watching Armitage squirm. Sitting on a dirty box and eating street food.

“I love the smell of babies hair don't you Tage?” 

“No.”

“How many children do you have Mrs. Hux?” Tian asked. 

“We have two, a boy and a girl.”

The General choked on his noodles, his face grew a deep shade of scarlet. Tian slapped Armitage on the back as his coughing fit increased.

“Their names are Johnson and Sabrina.”

Armitage looked like he would have gladly strangled her if she wasn’t holding a human shield.

A girl no older than six brought the General some water which he inspected well before drinking.

“Tara, we really have to keep moving,” he announced firmly the instant she finished eating and he could get a word past Tian.

Rey reluctantly handed the little person she was snuggling with back to her father and rolled her eyes in a friendly manner as if to say, ‘you know how he is’. Now she was in for it. This was going to be a face the wall while standing on her head offence. 

Her proximity bracelet grew warm and flashed yellow as he strode off. 

“Slow down Tage.”

“We have to get home to little Johnson and Sabrina,” he shot back angrily. 

Rey grinned at him. “They just jumped into my mind. I kind of wished I had better names prepared. You should have seen your face. When Tian called me your wife I thought I was going to die laughing, but I had to hold it together. Could you imagine, us together? You hate me.”

“I need a smoke,” he snapped. “That whole performance will be spread across the entire planet. Tian is a gossip, that much I remember about him. I'll be explaining my imaginary children's deaths to every officer who enquires about their health for years.”

She trailed him to the edge of the market, where the crowd thinned to other smokers, evening dog walkers and bored teens. For a moment she felt a little sorry she had stitched him up into such an outrageous lie. In a symbol of an apology she helped him light his cigarette before tucking the lighter back in his pocket. It had become practically a ritual when they were outside, the lighting of the cigarette. Armitage’s coat was fleece lined, Rey hovered her hand inside his pocket, warming up her cold hand.

The drizzling rain spattered next to them in the dark night. Fairy lights reflected in his dark glasses creating rows and rows of reflected stars. Here the smell of the smoke felt almost intoxicating instead of pressing, or maybe it was the freedom of the shadows. Did she dare? She reached over and put her other hand in his opposite pocket. To any passers-by they would think the enemies were lovers embracing. 

Only one was rudely smoking in the others face.

“You’re making this very difficult,” he complained, but didn't stop. The General smoked the slowest cigarette she had ever watched him consume, the red ember barely glowing.

The trailing smoke was making her cold nose water and, with her hands occupied, Rey gave into her earlier odd desire and buried her face in his chest. Insisting to herself she was just wiping her snot on his jacket and that was what he got for smoking over her. He smelt woody, or like a book. She could feel him breathe, hear him inhale, feel him jump as she pressed her pocketed hands against his legs.

Then she felt the warmth of one strong arm encircle her back as he pulled her closer. She wondered what she was really doing, apart from thoroughly cleaning her nose. It was like playing with fire. A beautifully fucked up fire. One that made her feel safe yet completely out of control at the same time.

Flicking the spent remains of his cigarette into the rain Rey felt Armitage’s other arm firmly support her back. Here they were, truly a situation she had never meant to happen. An incredible, stupid, wrong situation. Rey felt suddenly shy. How could she look at him again? She wiped her face firmly into him remembering with a shiver that they were sleeping in the same bed. 

“Disgusting,” she heard him grumble.

And she felt sad that he could describe this that way, her face drew into a scowl. Luckily she didn’t care what he thought. Rey pulled back to talk to him but he was looking away. 

She followed his gaze to see a young couple only a few meters away, but deep in the shadows of the back of a tented stall, kissing passionately. The boy was wearing an Academy uniform, his grey hat rakish angled and the girl was obviously not an Academy student, Rey felt she had heard Academy training was for humans only, but this girl was clearly a twi'lik. Her beautiful crown of twin lekku hung almost to her knees.

“Tage, that's sweet,” Rey rested her cheek against him, his chin rested on her head.

“No, it's an expellable offense.”

“Didn't you ever kiss a girl at the Night Market when you were young?”

“Never. I would never hurt my career for a minute of... of useless time wasting.”

“Would you like too?”

She felt his jaw tighten as he gritted his teeth together. He unwrapped his arms, turning away smoothly, leaving her cold. 

“We are going back.”

***

Back in his bedroom he poured himself a nightcap and shut himself on the balcony to drink and smoke.

Stupid, stupid, stupid Night Market. The only good thing was nobody had recognized her, so far at least. There had only been hundreds of officers there. He fiddled with a small drawstring bag in his pocket. It held a pair of pink feathered earrings she had insisted on buying inside. For when she got her ears pierced, she had told him before telling him to take the cost of the frivolous purchase out of the money he would owe her.

She didn't even have pierced ears for fucks sake. For some reason the pointlessness of her purchase rattled him. He gulped his drink feeling the sour burn of the alcohol. Then he rubbed at his stubble, it was getting long, he closed his eyes imagined it spiking her smooth skin, brushing her creamy neck. Then he pinched himself roughly, twisting the flesh above his proximity bracelet.

“No,” he growled quietly. He had already given too much.

Why did he insist they share a room? Now he had to go in there and lie down next to a girl he had a raging hard-on for, but he must not, absolutely could not even consider touching.

***  
Rey lay in bed listening to Armitage in the bathroom, the little noises someone makes as they move, the sound of water and the tink-tink of his razor as he swirled it in the sink.

He was defiantly starting to grow on her, although she had no idea why. Probably the close quarters, having to live so closely, so intimate. And the rain. Rey felt she could safely blame it on the foreign feeling of rain. Still, it was easy to feel things in a beautiful bedroom with plenty of food and a pretty face. She shook herself. A pretty face? She must be going mad, there was no way she even noticed his how his amber hair waved. Hair that her fingers ached to ruffle. She definitely didn’t like his eyes, so blue and steely, permanently stern. As if he had forever caught her doing something naughty. She snuggled deeper into the soft bed. 

Armitage finally came out of the bathroom, she smiled sleepily; even his pajamas were black. Each night she saw him in his night clothes a little part of her quietly exploded into a firework of internal giggles.

“Move.”

“What?”

“Move, that's my side. You know I sleep next to the door.”

“But I'm in a warm spot.”

He squeezed in next to her and, with a pillow in both hands, forcibly pushed her relaxed body to the opposite side of the bed. 

“Leave that there,” he ordered fluffing the pillow between them. Then he added another, building a soft wall down the middle of the bed. She couldn't see his body as the wall was now tall enough to block each other from view. “I don’t want to even look at you after that stunt you just pulled. Telling people we’re married, it’s absurd. I would never align myself with someone so base. I do hate you.”

She stuck an arm underneath the wall and pinched him on the shoulder.

“If you touch me again you will regret it,” his voice sounded deadly serious.

The arm slowly redacted back to its own side of the wall.

He turned the light off and she curled up in darkness.

“Tage?”

“Shut up.”

“What would you do if I touched you again?”

“Do not test me. I will make you regret it.”

Rey lay on her back and lifted her knees, pressing her buttocks into the mattress. She felt him yank at the blanket and it slipped off her body. One shoulder grew cold. Yanking it back she smiled.

“Tell me,” Rey teased.

“Don't be so ridiculous, go to sleep.”

“Would you make it so I can't touch you?”

Rey waited for him to answer, feeling him lie perfectly still. She imagined his scowl. Just when she felt he wasn't going to answer she heard a sullen.

“Yes.”

Her teeth gleamed into the night. Oh, he would suffer. “Then what? What would you do? Say it, I need to know,” her toes curled in the sheets.

“I'd hold you down so you can't move your body. I'd cover your... mouth. I'd stop your constant chatter.”

“What would you cover it with?”

He moved, the bed rocked gently, they both lay next to each other, worlds apart. 

“Go to sleep.”

“I need to know,” she repeated. “What would you use?”

“My mouth.”

For a moment Rey thought she’d misheard, her eyes blinked slowly in the total dark. Moving her palm along her inner thigh she stroked her tingling skin. Her hands felt the goose bumps his voice made rise. The sound of his firm tenor lit a slow burning fire inside of her. How she burned at his tone, the way he made even the simplest comment an order. 

Like he was still holding her chain, pulling her close.

“Would you hold down my legs?”

He moved again beside her, although whether he turned away or towards her she couldn't know in the complete darkness. The pillow wall stood firm.

Finally he spoke. “Yes.”

“Tell me how, I want to know, in case I want to touch you. How would you punish me?”

“I would lie between your legs and hold you down. You can't move. I can do whatever I want,” his voice lowered. “You're naked.”

“I'm so wet.”

“Shut it, you can't talk remember?”

Rey put a finger in her mouth biting herself, pressing on her tongue, a soft moan escaped.

“You're... wet, so I touch you there. In your...in your,” Rey could hear the tremor in his voice. “Vagina.” 

Biting harder, her eyes watered. Her other hand continued to wander up and down her thighs, then sweeping her stomach, fingers catching on the edge of her underwear. Brushing through her pubic hair.

She could sense him breathing raggedly, the way the bed moved, the soft noise of a hand stroking under a sheet matched her own circling fingers. Let him pretend the darkness made all this somehow guilt free.

“You can't move, but you want to. You're trapped under me,” his voice faded. 

She waited on the edge of a cliff, staring at a rockslide of longing.

“I can't do this. Leave me alone,” he told her. 

She felt him still his tugging and her trapped voice escaped in a loud huff of long held breath.

They both lay perfectly still, Rey felt her every heartbeat sounded like flyers taking off. Slowly she inched her hand under the pillow wall until her fingers found his rigid body, his muscles tense.

Rey ran her hand down his back. Touching.

“Stop.”

She withdrew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was actually the first chapter I wrote. This story started out being a plot revolving around Rey and Hux being on 'Antiques Roadshow' together. It has completely changed. Now let us never speak of such silly idea again. Right? Right.


	7. What Lovers Don't

It was early morning when either of them found sleep.

When Armitage stirred, still bleary and tired, it was later than his usual waking time. In space he was used to his alarm pulling him out of bed at the same early time as his stormtroopers, and here, planet side and stuck shacked up with the most annoying person in the universe, he still liked to be up and dressed before Rey. That way there was absolutely no room for early morning chit-chat over his embarrassing morning glory.

However this cloudy dawn his body floundered, it refused to slide out of its warm blanket cocoon. His eyes wavered, barely blinking away sleep, and in a rare sign of weakness, he allowed his mind to wander.

Through the window trails of water could be seen etching repeated channels in an almost mesmerizing ballet of movement. He watched the water fall and fall. Once it hit the ground it couldn’t get up again. Was he a fallen water drop?

Turning away from the window Armitage could see Rey’s hand barely poking out from under the intact and unmoved pillow wall, next to him. He studied her little fingers, moving his face towards them careful not to breathe on her skin. His own hand rested near to hers, so close their fingers nearly touched. He stared at the bodiless hand of the woman he hated, it was a workers hand, tanned and calloused, yet womanly shaped, with pretty half-moon nails. Strong but soft.

It moved, as if she knew he was there, her hand slid across his face. Small fingers ran smoothly across his cheek, tracing his jaw, sweeping his eyebrows, then resting gently on the dimple between lips and nose. Slowly Rey covered his mouth, just the slightest pressure of a palm blocking his airway; enough to make his eyes close, his chin tilt, before the hand drifted and began caressing his neck. She crept across the short distance to his own resting hand and their fingers entwined.

Sighing softly into the wall of white cushions separating them Rey slowly pulled his arm under the barricade and to her side of the barrier, he found her warm skin as she pressed his palm against her body. He swallowed dryly before wetting his lips.

“Rey,” he said the tone of warning in his voice. “Why do you plague me? Why do you have to keep touching? It drives me insane.”

She guided his hand lower as he talked. He touched her smooth stomach, feeling the dimple of her belly button as she dipped his guided fingers. Then he felt his outstretched fingers running over a hip bone and curled hair.

He opens his mouth wordlessly, face muffled, feeling his ears burn. Letting the unseen girl control his touch. He won't look at her. He won’t move the flimsy obstacle he constructed. It's like he's reaching through bars to touch her.

Rey holds him with both hands now, one hand pulls his thumb, the other guides his wrist. He feels her wetness as she controls his fingers to swipe up and down. When his finger catches in her cunt he feels her hips press towards his knuckles.

“Rey,” he repeats, it’s almost a moan and he feels so frustrated, the wanting starts to choke him.

“I touched you again,” she answered. “You have to punish me.”

He pretends she is the one who presses his finger deeper.

“Punish you?” He moves closer to her body making sure the pillow is their weak defense from facing one another. It is like they are enacting some sort of bizarre three-way with a cushion as a third.

“You are the one punishing me filthy rebel. You know that I don't like you, that we can never be... how you tease me. No wonder Kylo Ren is obsessed.”

She stops.

“I have never,” she angrily says. Too his extreme displeasure Rey pulls the pillow away and she faces him, pink cheeked and eyes flashing. “Ever done anything with Kylo Ren, and I never will. I don’t want any relationship with him either.” 

Armitage wonders if he should remove his finger before they have an argument.

As if she can read his mind she flops back into the mattress. “Don't you dare stop.”

“Or what?”

“You don't want to know,” she threatened.

She adjusts her legs, her underwear is hooked around one ankle splayed across her foot, and now he's got an excellent view of his knuckles sinking in and out of her gorgeous velvety pussy. He pushes a second finger inside her. It feels so tight and hot. He slowly drags, curling and stretching. Her hips rise to meet him. She is unusually quiet with her eyes closed, lips parted. The General generously allows her to press her face against his shoulder as he works. Her tiny gasps and widening knees guide his exploring hand.

She looks brilliant, like a shining star.

Just when he's worked up the courage to move his dick close enough to rub against her hip there is a sharp knock at his door.

“Go away,” he yelled a little too loudly making Rey jump.

“Armitage open this door now.”

Rey’s eyes flew open and looked up at Armitage’s own horrified face in dismay. 

“The General,” they both gasp as Rey just has enough time to cover both of them with a twisted blanket.

His father, bursts into the room, as fast as a person can who uses two walking sticks, in an obvious rage his face is red and pulled into a wicked snarl. Armitage removes his fingers from inside the one girl he really shouldn’t be fooling around with. Under the sheets a trail of moisture extends between them, like a sticky bridge of shame.

“What the fuck General, get out,” Armitage almost screams with an explosion of mortified rage. He can match his obvious father's anger right now.

“In my house,” Brendol limped to a chair to help support himself. “You do this,” he motions at them. “In my house. You are nothing, you idiot, I should kick you out right now. I knew you would never bring me anything but disappointment. After everything I sacrificed for you.”

“For me? What have you ever done for me?”

Rey tucked the blanket around her chastely her blonde hair looked like a circus of sin; she opened her mouth then closed it. Armitage ground his teeth. This really couldn’t be happening. Why did the universe hate him? How embarrassing to be chewed up by his hated father in front of the girl who'd only just let him... his eye twitch twitched uncontrollably.

“Get... out...” he repeated slowly to the General.

“You married your whore, you did it because you knew I’d hate it.” 

“What are you talking about? You’ve gone insane.”

Brendol threw a card onto the bed. It was addressed clearly in large black loops;

_To the honorable General of the First Order and his partner - Mr and Mrs Hux_

Rey picked it up as the two men proceeded to verbally attack each other. Armitage felt her hand on his shoulder.  
“What?” He barked shrugging Rey's touch off.

“It’s an invite to a graduation dance at the Arkanis Academy,” she informed him. “Tian must have already talked to someone there,” Rey murmured holding the card up for Armitage to read, he noticed in smaller writing was a brief, hand written message of congratulations on their marriage.

She looked at him wildly. “News does travel fast.” 

“To find out like this, third hand. You must be ashamed of your whore,” his father continued to yell, ranting at his son like a wild dog protecting a long dead carcass, but Armitage had already switched targets.

“You!” He sputtered at Rey, pulling the offending card out of her hand and tearing it in half. He rolled out of bed and put on his greatcoat, wrenched open the balcony door then slammed it behind him.

Bare feet stumbled in the rain spray, but he managed to get the cigarette in his mouth. With shaking hands he lit up and inhaled leaning far over the railing.

He could hear Rey talking to his father. Just muffled voices over the steady rain. 

Scraps of conversation came through, just words. Mostly the General saying the word ‘whore’ embarrassingly loud. Was that what he sounded like when he talked? Vicious and mean and stupid?

Then the wind dropped and he could hear Rey clearly for one instant.

"...I care for him very much..." 

Armitage coughed. A wracking smokers cough that left his stomach aching and his lungs hollow. What was she doing? What were they doing? He hung his head over the railing imagining jumping into the clouds.

He heard his bedroom door slamming and then the balcony door open.

“I'm sorry,” Rey said. “He's gone now. I used, you know, the Force,” she said it quickly knowing he didn’t like it mentioned, “to make him forget that he's very angry.”

“You mind tricked Brendol?”

“I got tired of the yelling really, I wanted to see you. He is very shouty. It’s too early to put up with his drama, especially since you left me in there with hardly any clothes on.” 

She snuggled up next to him using his body as a windbreak from the rain, their shoulders touching, but he turned away, rejecting her touch. 

“No more sleeping together, you can go back to your room.”

“Tage I am sorry. At the market I shouldn't have pretended...”

“It's not that,” he pressed his wet hair back and blew a cloud of smoke. “I can't do these, these… things with you. We have two and a half weeks. If we stay in separate rooms then nothing else can happen. I don't want to see you again till it’s time to go back to Nal Hutta.” 

“No, I refuse.”

“You don’t get it do you? I’m not interested in you. You mean nothing.”

“Nothing,” she repeated quietly. Rey’s face crumpled into a pale wisp of pain and Armitage felt a sharp hook of guilt in his gut. Why was she so, so infuriating? 

“Move,” he ordered meaning to go back inside. When she didn’t get out of his way he grabbed her elbow and shoved.

He felt completely blind-sided when Rey pushed him back and she pushed harder, two hands on his chest. The air whooshed out of his lungs. How could he forget she was a fighter? And a Jedi? Hadn’t she taken down Kylo Ren, cut his face up, left the man for Armitage to rescue. He took a step backwards.

“You,” she pushed him again. “You mean nothing to me.”

She followed him as he stomped inside. She watched as he dressed, pulling on her own jacket and shoes, she followed him out of the room, down the hall, downstairs, outside. She followed him silently, a whirlwind of a girl, matching his steps no matter how fast he went. She was fast, she could match him. He went to his speeder and opened the door. She stood in the way of him entering. Tiny and powerful.

“Stop following me.”

“No.”

Furious he grabbed her arms. They struggled and he pressed her against the side of the vehicle.

He leaned into her threatening, sneering. “I will hurt you.”

“You really won't,” she replied calmly.

Armitage put his hands against her shoulders and shunted. The sound of her body against the side of the speeder was louder than the pressure he used but it still made him flinch. Rey however looked unimpressed.

“I'm not leaving. I’m never leaving, there is nowhere you can go where I can’t follow.”

“Say it again,” he asked.

“Tage, I'm not going to leave you.” 

He pressed at her again, he had the rebel cornered. Her eyes bristling with the humiliation and helplessness, yet still she fought.

“Not that,” he tells her. “Tell me what you said up there,” he nods towards the balcony. “Say that I mean nothing to you.”

She looked away and swallowed. “We mean nothing to each other. That’s what you want to hear. That we are nothing?” The last word was almost a quiet, almost silent. 

“I don’t need you to pretend you like me, I don’t need to be reminded of... You can lie to everyone and to yourself, but I won’t. I was perfectly happy without a pretend family. I don’t need a partner or a home, or children or anything else. You might have grown up wanting more, but all I’ve ever wanted is the universe to leave me alone. Leave me alone, do you understand?” He looked at her more closely. “Stop it.”

“What? I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re crying.”

“I’m not, it’s the rain. The rain keeps getting inside me.”

Sure enough the rain was pouring out of her now, twin salt rivers from her screwed closed eyes.

“Stop,” he ordered helplessly, he couldn’t watch Rey cry. It twisted something inside of him to know he was somehow hurting her. “You aren’t nothing Rey. Don’t you see? I need you… to win this bet. You drive me crazy,” he pleaded.

The sun flooded over them through the open garage door, the golden light casting an aura across their faces.

Suddenly they were loosely surrounded by several people passing by to make their way outside while politely ignoring whatever their employer and his guest was doing. People he had seen about his house, nurses and cleaners and gardeners and old man Jeffery. The rain had stopped.

“I wonder when it’s going to rain again?” Jeffery pondered from the open garage door and the staff all bobbed and thought the same. Chatting amongst themselves while all the time pretending Armitage wasn’t holding a tearful girl against his speeder. It wasn’t their business to question.

“Don’t cry,” he told her dropping his arms. “You’re an ugly crier, it looks terrible.”

She stared at him, mouth open. “You would cry too if people thought you had married a stupid, great fucking asshole First Order General.”

“You’re no catch yourself." Armitage sagged and shook his head. "Come on,” he grabbed Rey’s hand and pulled her past the seemingly unseeing small crowd back inside. Leading her upstairs they pushed back into the sanctuary of his bedroom.

Wet again, his room was starting to smell of drying clothes permanently. Only at the moment the room also had the scent of their earlier sexual exploration. Armitage twitched and reached for another cigarette.

Rey lay on the bed face down as he smoked. Her feet sticking over the edge of the mattress, she used her toes to push off her boots. They fell with thumps on the floor.

He took off his jacket, then he took off her jacket, but she lay face down without offering any help to the process. She was still wearing her nightdress under the jacket. It shocked him a little to see her so open, so weak when all he knew was strength from her.

He rolled her over and she covered her red-rimmed eyes with her hands. Rey’s proximity bracelet looked large on such a small wrist. Suddenly he wanted to see her face, he had to confirm that little-miss-perfect-in-every-way was a filthy, ugly crier. He clawed her hands away from her eyes and held Rey’s wrists against the bed. Cigerette resting between his lips.

“I know you can stop me, do it,” he taunted.

She shook her head. “You can’t make me do anything,” she told him. “I refuse to listen to you anymore. First Order scum. You’re all the same, telling people that they mean nothing, then something. Devious like a desert rat. You think you’re the victim when all you do is boss me around. I thought you were different to Kylo Ren, all he wants is for me to do is obey, conform. Be his apprentice, join him, betray the Resistance, well I won’t. And I won’t do what you tell me to either. I like you, I really like you and you do mean something to me.”

That was what he wanted, his little fighter back. “Don’t be ridiculous please.”

“But it’s true, I think you’re smart and interesting and handsome and you do you know what? I enjoy being with you. I must have some sort of brain injury because I do.”

Armitage bent over her, his face next to her neck, eyelashes brushing her chin and he brought his hands along her arms, across her shoulders to rest on the blanket at each side of her head. He held himself over her. As close as he could without touching, without breathing, he didn’t want to get ash on her face. Her breath tangled in his hair with the tendrils of curling smoke.

“You want me to play pretend with you,” he said. “You are just playing. You’re very good at it.”

She sighed. “Does it make it easier for you?” She asked. “If you believe that?”

He nodded, a tiny movement. Would that make her happy? He could play. After all wasn’t he half way through one of the most dangerous games he’d ever been forced to endure? He would come out winning too, of that he was certain.

She wrapped her arms around him and he inched closer. The cigarette stuck rudely between their faces.

“For fucks sake,” she grabbed his smoke and ground it out on his bedpost leaving a black scar on the wood. “You make me want to ugly cry.”

***

Rey settled back underneath Armitage and saw his eyes were closed. He was poised, stuck, hovering over her on hands and knees. 

Rey undid his shirt, careful releasing each clasp, moving confidently down his chest before she pulled it off him. This was how she liked him best, his pale skin taunt yet soft. She reached for his pants.

“No,” he said. “Not that much.”

Fine. Good. It was a bad idea anyway. Rey walked her hands up his chest, smoothing over every inch, tracing his ribcage and pressing her palms against his nipples. His lips brushed her neck and moved, gently kissing the space under her ear and along her jaw. Red hair blurred her vision of the fine cracks in the ceiling.

“Tell me what you want,” she urged him.

He pushed up her nightdress and found she still had no underwear on. His finger pressed inside, the sudden intrusion made Rey gasp, her knees shot up to tilt towards his urgent touch.

“I want to make you…” he mumbled into her skin. “ I want to make you cum. Show me.”

Suddenly she felt a little embarrassed, her heart beat rapidly and Rey burned under her firebrand General. Rey had only ever done that for herself. It was rough and hard and fast. Not like in the few porn holovids she had seen. She had a certain way of lying, of holding her head to the left. And the noise. He would hear the wet slapping of scuffing fingers. Maybe she should fake it? Just let him keep splashing around. It felt nice. Then again her body ached for release. She could either let him do it now or wait till she was alone. Alone seemed so second rate.

“I can show you,” she said, and then she pursed her lips. “But you’re not allowed to laugh.”

He stopped kissing her neck and rolled next to her. “Why would I laugh? Do you use your feet?”

“Forget it,” her cheeks flamed crimson.

“Show me,” he dove back into her pushing one leg up so her knee was against his shoulder. Now his thumb pressed into her pussy, hand cupping between her ass cheeks. He was getting creative.

She swallowed and looked at the ceiling. The cracks in the plaster judged her.

“I like to be rubbed here.” She touched her clit, brushing, rolling, feeling the increasing pressure of wanting. Not wet enough. She put her fingers in her mouth to get a little lubricant. Armitage watched her suck her fingers, eyes like saucers. 

He quickly pressed his own two fingers into her mouth. It was not what she was after, but Rey obediently licked them with a soft, hot tongue, sucking and scraping his skin gently against her teeth. She watched his face, Armitage was mesmerized by the sight of his fingers bobbing in and out. His eyes had a look of a desperate thirst.

Pulling him out she left a trail of spit between her mouth and his hand. 

“I could always…” she started.

“No,” Armitage snapped and put his fingers back into her mouth. “Keep showing me.”

“Buuu tis isn’t reawy…” she mumbled through the deep throating of his hand. Fuck, this was not what she did to masturbate. Rey closed her eyes and sighed. At least it was not unpleasant.

He pressed his hard dick against her. If it wasn’t for his pants they’d be fucking. The steady scrape of his frotting made her moan into his wet palm. His other arm pulled her hips into his crotch. Rey longed free him from his uniform, but the rules of their game were set. Someone had to keep to keep their pants on. 

What a good First Order soldier, such control.

She moaned louder into him and pulled up her nightdress so her breasts were free. They bounced as he pushed against her, nipples hardening against the cool air. Armitage tore his eyes away from his fingers thrusting between her lips and as he gazed at her breasts she heard a little catch in his throat as he exhaled, breath hissing. 

As he started sucking her nipples she could hear him raggedly breathing through his nose. She ran her hands down his back, and tangled through his hair. Watching the amber strands as they reluctantly fluffed out from their usual stiff placement.

“Taaaay,” she moaned and pressed her pelvis high as he sucked harder. She could feel his thrusting become urgent. 

His fingers stuck in her throat and she scrabbled at his hand to stop herself from choking . She felt him shudder, his mouth wide on her breast as he pushed up. Feeling the spasm of his cock against her swollen cunt even through his pants.

She pulled his hand away from her mouth as he lay for a moment, spent and shuddering and red faced, between her breasts. Rey could feel his twitching eye on her skin, eyelashes fluttering.

Then he stood up and silently walked to the bathroom closing the door firmly. She heard it latch locked up tight.

Rey stared at the ceiling cracks and gave the smallest of sighs. Well, he would really have to pay for that performance. She hadn’t even got the orgasm he’d so wantonly proclaimed he wanted to make her have. Never mind, she was used to doing the heavy lifting herself. She put her own fingers back in her mouth.

But he would suffer. Mrs. Hux was not to be crossed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my... Sorry if there are too many mistakes this chapter. I find it infinitely hard to concentrate writing the smutty-smut-smut. 
> 
> During the writing of this scene several contractors came to trim the street trees. Imagine me, writing the 'c' word while trying not to let my eyes water too much and occasionally peeking thirstily out the window at men in high-viz with chain saws. They probably are on the next street feeling all dirty and used yet not knowing why.


	8. Shark

“Book eight, they go to an Academy ball.” Rey held up her latest _Roger Starr: Galactic Hero _novel. The well-worn cover had the hero, Roger, dressed in an old fashioned, cadet, dress uniform. The titular student was holding a torch in a dark and shadow filled corridor.__

____

__

She flipped to the folded napkin she used as a bookmark. “Look here, Roger and his friends were surprised to be invited to the dance because they are junior officers. They of course know something is up; probably that doctor is behind it. You know, the one who kidnapped their dog in number seven.”

Armitage sighed and hunched over his comm screen a little more. She never stopped. His deadlines were sinking away as she continued to prattle. Day after day, hour after hour. He wondered how partnered officers ever got anything done. No wonder the practice of forming relationships on ship came with a long list of limitations. He would never suffer a subordinate to be so frivolously distracted.

Rey continued talking to him, her voice like the hum of a familiar mechanical part, she was, as always, unconcerned with his obvious disinterest. 

“I would have thought that they could have worked in a girl for a dance chapter, but no. They were not mentioned. So, when we go to the Academy…” 

Armitage spun around and fixed Rey with a cold stare. “Absolutely not. We are completely and utterly not going to the Arkanis Academy. Not for a dance, a presentation, any form of event, an accident or even to stroll past to see the ocean. We are not going and that is final.”

“Oh, really?” Rey snapped her book shut her eyebrows drawing together in a determined scowl. 

“It's not like - whatever you think it is. These things are long and boring and a lot of sitting. The food is terrible. You listen to excruciatingly poor speeches, and the building is filled with literally hundreds of First Order officers. Officers who, by the way, have been looking at your,” he jabbed his finger at her, “bounty pictures every fucking day for months. Watching the cost of capturing the galaxy’s most wanted Jedi skyrocket, thanks to your Skywalker boyfriend. So stop being stupid and think for a change.”

“Well if there are so many speeches and officers, nobody will be looking at me then.”

“Everyone will look! You are my surprise wife,” he hissed the word acidly. “Whom nobody has ever seen before. The wife of the highest ranking officer there. If they don't know you as my wife, or a Jedi, or a Rebel, then they have probably put a bet on this. He held up his bracelet. Or have you forgotten about that whole ridiculous affair?”

Rey huffed. “Well, let’s just tell the few people who may know about the bet that you have to pretend I'm your wife, so your father doesn't kill you, and ha-ha, funny story later it's all fine. Nothing to see here.”

“It's so easy for you, you'll be gone soon. I have to work with these people.”

“Tage,”

“Reeeeeey,” he pouted back. “You think you can say my name and I'll do whatever you want?”

“I would never, but can we please go? Please?” She knelt on the bed beseeching him with clasped hands. Her dark eyes pleaded prettily. “I’m so tired of seeing these four walls.”

“What would you do for me if I said yes?” He lit a cigarette and moved to the balcony door, sliding it open. He was learning that it was easier to smoke outside, or at least in the doorway. It saved on having to roll twice as many, preparing for the high amount she kept knocking out of his mouth. He blew into the night sky and waited for her answer.

“I'll dance with you.”

“You would do better to say you won't dance with me, I don't dance.”

“Alright, what do you want?”

“Hmm, what do I want?” His eyes wandered to the hairbrush on his bedside table. Then he watched as Rey lay down on his bed. She smoothed out the blankets, waving her arms up and down like a child in the snow. 

He had been so good, so very good these past few days. He'd reverted back to making her sleep in her own room and kept his door locked until noon. He hadn’t even touched her again, not one strand of Rey’s hair had dragged through his fingers. Even though she’d lean over him every chance she got. It was aggravating to have to live under such stress.

He shouldn't throw away all his good work. 

Outside a star broke free from the grey clouds and flashed in the distance. 

Then again, if he swore not to touch her, the time did seem to press when he spent his time avoiding little hands.

Armitage cleared his throat. “Since we're all about gambling at this point in time, how about a simple game of pool? You win, you dance. I win, we stay at home.”

Rey paused her arm fluid movements. “I can't swim,” she admitted quietly.

“Not swimming at a pool, the game pool. It’s played on a special type of table covered in fabric. You hit balls into holes, they are called pockets. The balls are hit with cue sticks, they are like long, polished staves. The person who sinks all their balls into the pockets, and who also sinks the number eight ball is the winner.”

“Sounds like a funny sport. Knocking balls into holes. I thought we weren’t allowed to do that.” Rey drew her knees up, slowly running her feet up and down the mattress. She smiled lewdly at the ceiling.

“Do you want a chance to go to the dance or not?”

“I don’t know, it sounds a bit hard, and you’ve played before.”

His stomach flipped. Finally, something that the girl was not disgustingly confident about. He would show Rey how the First Order won bets, and leave her gasping, crushed in the dust. 

“We'll have a practice game before the official match,” the General offered generously, really she could not get a better deal. If she insisted in her delusion that she would get to that dance then let her suffer. “I’ll help you.”

“I suppose, if it’s my only chance, I accept.” she sat up and slid off the bed.

They snuck past Brendol’s ground floor bedroom, and down another flight of stairs, to a crudely cinder-bricked room near the house’s garage. With a flourish of dust Armitage pulled a sheet off a huge, competition size, green felted billiards table while Rey looked somewhat vacantly around the darkened room. 

It felt a little dungeon like, with high, long, thin windows set up near the ceiling. Apart from the table the only furniture was a set of cue shelves holding two sticks. A single stool also sat forlornly in the corner with an ashtray and a collection of dead bugs on top. It was a man cave for a man who didn’t have a lot of imagination.

Armitage turned on the low hanging, fringed light over the table then fiddled with the thermostat. The room felt damp, why the servants couldn’t take the time to warm the place up now and then he didn’t know. He bet they spent enough time down here when they were supposed to be working. 

After pretending to inspect the cue sticks he passed Rey one (the one with the dodgy tip, but she wouldn’t be able to tell). The rebel twirled the cue. Expertly, brandishing it like a staff, obviously relishing the polished wood between her hands in an irritating manner. 

“Stop that!” He dodged her mock strikes and racked the balls. The soft clicks as he rearranged their polished surfaces sounded cathartic in his ears.

“Rules. No sword fighting, are you a child? He grabbed the end of her stick as it flew close to his head and shoved it back towards her. “No magic fingers,” he waved his hand in a mocking mime of a Force user’s hand. “Don't sink the black ball with the number eight on it or it’s an automatic loss,” he held up the ball in question and she nodded. “If you sink a ball you get to have another go. The first person to sink all their balls is the winner. Simple - even for you.”

With two hands Rey swung her stick again, the tip landing millimeters away from the copper guard on the corner of the table. Staring Armitage swallowed his barely suppressed anger and put his hands behind his back drawing himself up to pert attention.

“This table is worth more than your life. If you make one mark, one scratch, one stain I will not go easy on you. Understand?”

She nodded.

“Now pay attention. I thought you wanted to go to that stupid dance? If you aren’t going to take it seriously we can leave.” 

Rey put her stick down, the butt stood immobile between her feet. 

“You are either ‘bigs’ or ‘smalls’. You must have at least one foot on the ground when you shoot…” He went through the less important rules as she stood impatiently rolling her eyes.

“Why don’t you just show me?” Rey suggested.

Bending low, drawing back his cue, he took a few practice jabs before breaking, the balls skittled, clunking across the table. Two balls sunk, one large, one small. The General chose large and sunk another two balls in quick succession. As soon as he had felt the smooth surface of his cue he had felt in control, masterful, he had never had a girl to show off to before. Pool was one of the few things he was good at. He had practiced for hours alone when he was young. 

Humming to himself Armitage relaxed his shoulders. Lining up another ball he paused bent low across the jade felt, it was a nice tricky shot, but easy for him.

Raising his eyebrow he looked up at Rey as he posed, feeling taunt and in control. She had his comm in her hands swiping at it. The General hadn’t even seen her pick it up as they left his bedroom.

“What are you doing? You're not watching me.” 

“I'm putting some music on.”

“I don't have any,” then he heard a song coming from his device. It seemed now he had music. 

Rey put the comm on the stool, brushing off the dead bugs. 

He waited for her full attention, drumming his fingers against the dark wood of the table. Was it too much to ask for a little adoration at something he was so clearly exemplary at?

“My turn?” She asked absently.

“No, but might as well, otherwise you may not get a chance.”

“So, I hit this white ball into one of those balls and it goes into a hole?” 

She made the explanation sound so childish. He frowned. “You have to hit the white ball into one of the balls with the smaller circles, because I am doing the larger striped ones.”

Bending over she rested the stick on her left hand. “You don’t say,” Rey mumbled.

He snickered as she missed the white ball completely.

“Show me how to do it again,” she frowned. “This stick is too glossy, it sticks to my skin. It’s a sticky-stick.”

Armitage paused momentarily, he had promised he wouldn’t touch. His last… weakness was humiliating enough without creating more regrets. But this was purely for sport. The girl would never have a chance. Of course she had absolutely no chance anyway, but, it was no reason not to at least consult with Rey. 

With firm hands he moved close to her body, straightened her arm and adjusted her grip to a more fluid hold. He let himself press against her hips, just slightly, their bracelets clacked together as he moved her fingers. 

“Look down the stick to aim.” Placing a palm on the top of her head Armitage made final adjustments, her blonde hair soft underhand, before he stepped back. Rey took the shot, her bottom wriggled a little before sinking her ball. The sight of her small body bent over the table made his throat dry.

Never mind, he could control himself better now. Sleeping in the same bed had been the mistake. One he would not make again.

She stood up and grinned.

“I got it in!”

“Good, good girl,” the General encouraged her generously and lit a cigarette. He pushed open one of the high windows with the button of his stick, before smoothly sinking another one of his balls, after she had naturally missed again.

Admittedly the music was nice, he'd never played with a girl, with music. Usually he’d find something like that too distracting. And he was going to win. He wouldn't have to go to the stupid, fucking dance and explain to people he despised about his dumb, fake children. They could stay home, play more pool. Rey could bend over the table more. Armitage wondered if she had any short skirts in her wardrobe. There was something about watching her from behind that made his eyes water. 

He moved the cigarette to the ashtray while he angled her hips for the next shot. Really, to get Rey in the exact right position he needed to hold her in both hands. It was the only way she was going to learn the correct stance, the touch was completely for her benefit. She slowly moved her body against his own, and he noticed she was swaying in time with the music. With that sort of attitude cavalier attitude of course her ball only crept a few inches and rested near where it had started. So he stayed close, hands circling her waist. Charitably he offered to let her try again and he touched her inside leg with his knee to widen her position. 

“Harder,” he instructed her, his lips almost touching her hair. The knee hovered against her leg.

“Tage,” she whined. “Step back.”

He didn’t move. He was helping. It was important she learnt to play correctly.

Rey sunk her ball.

They continued to play, he corrected every stance, angled every curve of her arms, her neck, her back. Told her harder or softer. They brushed each other as they moved. The heating in the small room warmed their skin to a glowing pinkness even with the window open. He peered at the thermostat. He’d put it on way too high. With the heating adjusted Armitage returned to the game.

He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, folding each black cuff into perfect creases. Something felt pleasant inside of him, animated maybe? And almost happy. As he watched Rey’s ass wiggle against the table he wondered why? The whole situation was laughably domesticated. Trapped at home, playing with his... prisoner - no… hardly a friend. He searched for a label. Playing with the-criminal-who-he's-forced-to-be-with didn't sound right either. In any case Rey was not in any shape or form a girlfriend. He was certain that was not her position. No, Rey was nothing but a pretty distraction. A somewhat pleasanter chapter in his so far disappointing life. 

And he was going to win the game. 

Armitage chalked his stick and vowed to demonstrate to the Resistance that the First Order would not lose, even at a game of pool. However in his sudden zeal he missed the next ball and just watched sulking as Rey attempt the next one. She turned around and smiled, always smiling, she was smiling for him, with shining eyes and sweet lips. Armitage felt the urge to check if there was anyone standing behind him, instead he stepped past Rey to take his turn.

He felt a movement on his head as he bent over the table. He swiped at it. Damn insects get in everywhere. He lined up a shot. A tricky one. They were down to the black number eight, the last ball. He hovered changing hand placement, bending low, the movement returned to his scalp yet harder.

“Do you mind?”

Rey had slid her stick along his hair part. The tip of her cue pointed at the white ball, comically overshadowing his own stick.

“I can reach perfectly, let me take the shot.”

He pushed her stick off his head, his hair flopped over his eye and he scratched it back in place.

“Everything's a game to you.”

“Well, this is a game. Isn’t it?”

“Shut up and move away.”

“How about I help you like how you help me?” She draped over his back resting her face on his ribs, wrapping her arms around him. 

He felt shocked, how stupid was this girl? “I don't do that. I was actually assisting! Maybe if you paid attention instead of twirling about you could get better, but now you can do it yourself.”

“Oh no, how will I play without the mansplaining?” She jiggled him making his arms wobble.

The distraction only made him more determined to completely ruin her. Inhaling, Armitage concentrated on his ball, it filled his conscience like a meditation. The calm that had pushed him through battle, the nothing that sucked his feelings into swirling, drowning waves. The General managed to sink the final ball even with being shaken like a three legged AT-AT. 

Suck on that Rey from Jakku.

“I win.” The taste of victory made him swell up. He straightened and she wrapped her arms around him even more tightly. Her cheek pressed against his spine.

“Congratulations. But that was the warm up game,” Rey answered with an extra shake, her lips moving, warm breathe on his back.

The General plucked the final ball, the black number eight, out of its pocket. He held it up and decided now was a good time for an intimidating speech to demonstrate the power of the First Order.

“This ball,” he twisted and brandished the shiny, dark orb at Rey, “represents the First Order. We will always be the last on the table. We will always win.”

“That ball is the First Order?”

He pushed her off his back and lit another cigarette. Of course she didn’t understand his analogy. The Resistance probably encouraged confidence in their soldiers by high fiving and licking each other’s eye sockets.

“Tage it's so hot in here, don't smoke anymore,” Rey fanned herself.

He ignored her request. “I'll win the second game and completely smash you. As in destroyed.”

“You say the nicest things to a girl.”

Armitage moved closer to the window as Rey set up the balls for another game. She undid her shirt and took it off; he watched her undress, his eyes narrowed. She was only wearing a white tank top underneath. Was it? Was her top sheer? Should he make her take it off? 

He means put the other shirt back on, he corrects himself. 

The smoke curled near the light as Rey racked the table. Leaving the General to pointlessly rearranged the balls to his favorite layout then inch the triangle slightly several times. 

Left, right, left, up a bit, down, down.

It was still getting hot in the small room. He undid a button on his own shirt. A bead of sweat slid down his side.

“You can take it off if you want,” Rey sat on the table next to him and pulled off her socks tossing them into a corner. Her bare feet delicately swung before one pressed against his chest.

“You'd like that wouldn't you?” He groaned inwardly. He was turning into an idiot.

“Yes,” she answered lying back. Reclining on his table Rey’s blonde hair spread across vivid green. The cue stick protruded erect between her legs. Her top was definitely sheer, her pink nipples rose and fell as she breathed. 

“Get off the table, you'll ruin the felt.”

Rey slowly slid off.

“It's your break. You have to aim for the middle ball in the triangle, here,” he pointed, “and you'll want to try a harder than usual hit to move everything around.” Removing the rack he stepped back.

Rey broke, the balls bounced and clattered around but none fell in any pockets.

Smothering his feelings he tried not to show his delight in her not even accidently getting one in. She could stew in her insolence.

As Armitage lined up he saw her chalking, she looked down at him as he put both hands on the wood of the table, a smile on her lips. 

“Tage?”

He inspected the layout carefully weighing up his options. “Hmm.”

“I've heard there's a rule in pool. If you don't sink a single ball you have to run around the table with no clothes on.”

“Well, you don't have to do that, it's your first time.”

He paused. Wait how did she know that, if she's never played before? The thought made him miss an easy shot. The very first shot, when the table was loaded. He looked at her suspiciously, she was smiling again.

As Rey passed she pressed her cue against his stomach, edging him away from where he stood, and sunk the ball he had been aiming for even though others were easier to play.

“How do you know that rule? You’ve never played pool before.”

“I never said I hadn't played before, all I said is I don't know how to swim.” Her hand patted his burning cheek before sinking two more balls. On her fourth shot Rey missed and shrugged. “I do practically carry my own pool cue around with me - usually.”

Deceit! So the girl's played before, so what? Armitage doubted she had had her own pool table in the middle of the FUCKING desert. He was better. His eye twitched.

As he lined up the only ball he could play a pair of perfect breasts appeared in front of him. The top Rey had on was definitely utterly sheer and it stretched obscenely on her little frame. He watched her rest her tits on the side of the table, they pushed together. Nipples watched him, erect and mesmerizing.

He missed again. The white ball skidded uselessly into the void.

“Stop it,” Armitage told her coldly. “Don't touch the table again while I'm playing.”

Rey sunk two more balls dancing in time to the beat of the music. Her hips pressing against the dark wood of the table. Then another close miss.

This turn he had to sink a ball.

His shirt was a sweaty mess, he straightened it and his hair, pulling it back with venom. It flopped back into his eyes. Fucking hair. Fucking Rey. He tugged at his shirt again.

“Really, just take it off,” curious fingers moved across his chest and undid his shirt while he glared at her. 

“I know what you’re doing, but it won't work,” he shrugged off his shirt and threw it at her feet. “I've been trained to survive torture.”

He lined up, drew back.

Rey’s voice cut through his scrabbling calm. “I'm just getting you ready for my eyes on your sweet, sweet body as you show me your big, hard cock after you lose. You won’t sink a single ball General Hux.”

His eye twitched uncontrollably as he missed.

“Fuck Rey, you said that on purpose,” he slammed the table.

She laughed. “Don’t break your precious table.”

No more good sportsman, he was not going to that dance. And to think he had tried to help her. Devious, cheating Jedi, how could he expect anything more?

As she went to line up her next shot he stood behind her and put his hands on her bouncing hips.

“You move too much,” he tried to hold her still. She pressed back into his crotch grinding. He let her rub and half closed his eyes. The fringe around the low hanging light swayed and he felt numb, she let him thrust forward. The way her hands touched his stomach made him want to forget every promise he'd made to himself. And yet; he thought of the young cadet passionately kissing the illicit twi’lit at the night market. He could never throw it all away for a woman who was only with him for a bet. He had never been that boy. He was the boy who played pool alone while others broke the rules. His eyes flicked to the eight ball.

“Was this part of your training?” She asked. “Did you all take turns rubbing your dicks on each other’s ass cracks?”

“Take the shot,” he growled as he roughly pulled her into him.

“So I hit the white ball into the other ball right?”

He moved his hands under her shirt, over her breasts, brushing her nipples, thumbs dragging.

***

Rey had made up her mind to go to the Academy dance. How could she pass up an opportunity to infiltrate the First Order so completely?

However.

It was sad to see Armitage so worked up about the game. He had been so proud during the practice game, like a bossy pigeon all puffed up and pushing the lady pigeons around while stealing the best bread crumbs. She smiled at him. Rey could win, it was so incredibly easy to distract him. Show a little skin, turn up the heating, talk when he took a shot. It was like shaking down a child.

But she liked puffy pigeons.

Rey undid her pants and slid them off so she stood almost naked, with nothing but her thin singlet.

Armitage watched her stony faced. She curled up against him, but he didn’t move.

“Take your shot,” he repeated. “Win the game.”

She pulled herself up onto the table, legs splayed. Picking up the black number eight she held it up.

“This is the First Order.” She placed the ball between her open legs, “and I am the Resistance.”

She rolled the ball along her inside leg, it felt cold and smooth.

He looked so shocked, shirtless and red. 

“You moved a ball, you lose.”

“I lose,” she winked and pressed the cold, black ball against her pussy. It grew slick and warm as it spun under her touch. 

The General inhaled, his eye twitching.

“Get off the table, you’re making a…a mess.”

“Not I, I’m not the one making a mess, it’s the First Order.” Rey held up the eight ball between two fingers, a sheen of wetness reflected in the low hanging light. “The First Order is seducing the Rebel. It’s so dirty.”

He moved to pluck the ball out of her hand, but she held it out of reach. Poor, puffy pigeon.

“The First Order would never sink so low. Get off the table.” He reached for the eight ball again leaning over her, he sunk against her body. Skin touching skin. There was no way she could keep the ball out of reach for long, he was taller, stronger, more determined. Instead of retreating she abruptly brought the ball between their faces.

Their eyes met as she licked the ball. Her pink tongue sweeping slowly across the number eight. He actually flinched.

Rey wrapped her legs around his waist. “Lick it.”

He blushed. Even his chest reddened.

“Lick it General, clean your First Order.”

He closed his eyes and she pressed the ball lewdly against his tightly closed lips.

“Good boy, you are going to look so handsome at that dance.”

Rey watched as he gritted through the agony of defeat. She felt his hands sweep her back as she kept the ball between their faces. She kissed his cheek and he let out a sound between a gasp and a grunt. 

She pulled the ball off his lips dropped it on the felt. It fell with a thump and rolled away. Her hands moved to his waist band. 

He swallowed. “Rey, I don't think...”

She smiled and dropped her arms, her hands loosely hooked on his belt. 

For a moment he leant his face against the curve of her shoulder, pulling her into his chest, their bodies crushed together as Rey teetered on the lip of the table. She felt his lips tangled in her hair before she pulled his face close, how she wanted to kiss his lips. But his eyes were unfocused, they were staring at the First Order in ball form. Watching.

The General loosened his embrace, sliding away from her warmth, and gripped the edge of the table instead. 

“You win,” he conceded, eyes lowered.

Her hands cupped his serious jaw, tugging him back to her, thumbs smoothing over his eyebrows.  
“You win General.”

***

When he went to turn off the heating Armitage noticed it had been turned up again. 

Rey dressed in his shirt leaving him to walk back to his room - cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Balls.


	9. Two Stripes

Almost unrecognizable.

That was what he had told her. Rey pulled the long jacket closer around her shoulders. Tucked the red shawl tighter over her head. The sharp ocean wind whipped a few blonde curls into her eyes and Rey pushed them back, only to have another section of hair break free.

They were standing on the edge of a cliff.

“This was where General Brendol Hux pushed a newborn nerf calf into a sea monster’s mouth. He did it in front of a class of students, including myself,” Armitage looked impassively towards the ocean. “To prove a point.”

She had to almost yell to be heard over the wind and waves. “What was the point?”

Armitage placed his black gloved hands behind his back and placed one foot on a jutting rock. He shrugged. “Weakness and strength.” The words were whipped away by the coastal winds.

Armitage had told her Brendol had been the commandant at the Academy many, many years ago. He had won a bloody battle while commanding a fleet of Alpha-3's in the Imperial Navy, but he had suffered many losses. Too many died, so his father had been blacklisted and banished, restricted to ruling over nothing more destructive than students. Children instead of armies.

Standing on the cliff edge Rey looked down onto the stony beach below. The waves crashed, slashing, frothing violently at the algae streaked monoliths. The sea spray rose viciously and noisily in peaks of gushing white water. A sea monster would have to be large to make its way through the violent waters. She imagined a row of young students watching in horror as a small, living, breathing baby nerf was flung towards its death. 

For some reason Armitage had dragged her to this bleak spot, and it was a morbid memory that he shared. Maybe he wanted to explain something he couldn’t say otherwise?

He turned from the lip of the cliff and started walking towards the nearby Arkanis Academy. Leaving Rey to scramble down from their slippery perch alone. Her hand smeared in moss dotted mud as she climbed. She held her palm out sighed. She had brought nothing to wipe it on, she was dressed in the gown Armitage supplied and her coat pockets were unusually empty.

Scrambling to catch up in her heeled boots she placed her muddy hand on the back of the General’s jacket making sure to clean off all her dirt, and leaving a brown smear across his backside.

He would take his greatcoat off anyway, she smiled to herself. 

However panic set in as they drew closer to the Academy building and Rey saw the crowds of officers and civilians making their way to the elite school’s graduation ceremony. If she got in trouble he had sworn they would be turning back. She brushed at the mud again and his eyebrows drew together in glare of annoyance.

“Please don’t make trouble for me,” he asked. “I know you grew up a savage, but for one night be something other than Resistance simpleton. Try to be normal.”

She left the mud alone and put her hand back in her pocket. Never mind, she should have known better than to feel empathy for the man. 

Arkanis Academy was an ancient building, a relic from long ago beings. The stone used in the building was the same as the grotto on the Hux estate, Rey could feel the same slow energy, it felt like Force sensitive people had made their home here at some time in the past, but now they were long gone.

Armitage steered Rey up a flight of imposing flagstone stairs. She noticed he avoided other people, although many eyes under black hats turned towards the well-known General. So many officers were attending it looked like a flock of black birds were converging on the grey steps. Their white insignias like ghoulish, toothed beaks.

There was no worry in anyone pointing out the mess on the back of his coat; he moved so fast through the parting crowd that nobody could catch them. Rey relaxed a little, until they got to the cloak room window.

Of course he didn’t help her with her jacket. That would be asking too much, even after all his speeches about manners and ‘savages’ he was the one who had little thought for other peoples comfort. She struggled to untangle her head wrap from a catch on her lapel when a firm hand pressed her arm.

“Mrs. Hux, allow me,” Tian unsnagged her and took her jacket.

Armitage looked on unmoved as he pulled off his gloves and allowed the smiling, round man to help his supposed wife. 

“How are you Mrs. Hux?”

“Call me Tara,” Rey sincerely held Tian’s gold ringed hand and shook it firmly. “What are you doing here?”

“One of my nephews is graduating, and of course I supplied the noodles for the meal. Fresh rolled, only the best for the First Order. You must tell me what you think,” he turned to Armitage. “General Hux, so good to see you again.”

The General nodded, giving the briefest of bows without offering his hand. “And how kind of you Tian to let the Commandant know we were available to attend this… event. Come along Tara,” Sweeping past the noodle vendor he pulled Rey along and they entered one of the biggest, most lavish rooms she had ever seen.

The stormtroopers stationed by the entrance saluted the General as he entered, but Armitage ignored their straightened arms, instead he stepped briskly after a flustered white gloved student usher. Others saluted as they passed, or stood, or at least pulled themselves straighter, and Rey shrunk a little as each person stopped talking to stare at the General of the First Order and his new bride. She felt like an animal at the zoo.

The usher guided the pair to the largest table and Rey sat, feeling completely out of her depth. The table was decadent with heavy red drapes and white plates and so many knives she wondered if they were all going to stab each other later. What meal needed five knives?

She was the only one sitting at the table, should she stand? This was not what she expected at all.

Rey looked up at the General, he was impeccable, his uniform, starched, the darkest of the black in the room. His stance military, pulled tight, angular, his body language effortlessly signaled his superiority to all other officers in the room. This was his world. The array of white stripes on his sleeve, the small difference between him and all others, but a difference just the same, one that meant absolute power.

Rey felt the change keenly. He was no longer the man she teased and ate lunch with or tried to kiss or read to. He was the First Order, destroyer of worlds and dangerous.  
How could she have forgotten that? Stupid, stupid girl. Thinking a few days, a few stolen moments changed anything.

This was not what she had in mind at all. This was all painfully confronting. Was this his life, one of silent awe from all who met him? She longed to rush back to the safety of their room. Why had she suggested this torture?

Armitage bent close to her but stayed standing. “Having fun?” He hissed smirking. 

She grasped his fist as it touched the table and glowered at him. She felt his other hand briefly touch her shoulder, a firm caress. The small gesture bolstered her spirit. So what if the flower arrangement was as big as a porg nest, and there were armed stormtroopers, and every woman here looked like they had just stepped out of a holovid? 

She was unrecognizable, he had said so. Maybe her makeup hid her flaws like the powder hid her scars. She shrunk again and examined her plate.

“What are you doing?” He asked.

“Nothing, nothing at all.” 

“Sit up straight, you are the wife of a General, not the wife of the man who supplies the noodles.”

Rey looked at where Tian was talking with a group of civilians, probably parents of the graduates. How she wished she was with them instead of in a sea of black and sequins and knives.

Another two men joined Armitage and he addressed them coldly. Their wives sunk to the table with Rey, but they were so spaced out and blocked by table arrangements Rey could do little more than greet their arms. Drinks appeared and she sipped. It seemed at these events officers and students stood, partners of officers sat and civilians did whatever they want. Somewhere, some unseen signal caused the officers to move to their place settings and partners were introduced. She found herself between Armitage and a handsome, dark skinned man who smiled brilliantly at her. She noticed his teeth were white, too white. She glanced at his sleeve. Only one stripe. 

The speeches began along with the food service. Rey stared in despair at her five knives.

“From outside in, I almost always forget myself,” the man told her and she blushed.

“Thank you, I haven't been to many of these.”

Armitage cleared his throat and she turned back to her plate. She wasn't supposed to talk to people, but really what a rule? It would be even more suspicious to not speak. A little backbone crept into her and Rey peeked at the man who winked at her.

“How long are you visiting for?” He asked.

“Only… one more week,” Rey’s stomach twisted and she turned to look at Armitage who gave her a look that clearly signaled she was to not talk. 

The man however was immune to the same rules Rey had been ordered to adhere to. “The General is a busy man,” he leaned towards Rey and whispered. “I used to go to school with him here. He was an excellent student.”

“And Tian, I know Tian went here too.”

The man quietly laughed, keeping low as to not to interrupt the presentations. “Briefly. Tian is an enigma into himself. He would have been a great officer in another life. Maybe now, if our large friend had his time over, he would have lasted. It seems more relaxed since the Order gained the upper ground...”

“Quiet,” the General commanded and the pair sunk into an awkward pause.

Rey looked at one of the women as she murmured to her husband. She drank her drink as one tiny meal got swapped out for another tiny meal. She wished Armitage would touch her again. But he was not Armitage right now, he was the enemy.

Instead she turned to Mr. white-teeth man. “Have you read any good books lately?”

***

He had made her wear a dress that was matt-black and long sleeves so she would blend in with all the officers. Rey had had touched up her hair, the dark roots safely bleached blonde and curled to tight springs. Like a mask her make-up was heavy, it smothered her. He had told her she was unrecognizable and it was true. She was the overly decorated slave-girl again. Her smoky eyes like holes in a whisky barrel. All she missed was her chain in his fist.

He had agreed to one hour. That was all. There would be at least 45 minutes of speeches while people quietly ate and then maybe she could dance. He would not. He would be stuck answering questions. Officers would want his attention and overbearing parents of students would lynch him for good placements of their spawn. The General had long ago given up on these events. 

It didn't help that his wife… no Rey.

He stared at the podium.

It didn’t help that Rey practically sparkled, she was by far, in his opinion, the best looking woman in the room, even with all the muck hiding her. At least in the top ten. He remembered back to his school days, and how ardently he had wished to have someone half as brilliant as Rey as a guest to any event. And now. 

She was talking to another man.

He had shushed her for the third time after she started to talk to the man to her left. An idiotic officer Armitage had taken most classes with. In fact everyone at their table was either a fellow ex-student, or the partner of an ex-student. It was practically a class reunion. Of all the people who ignored him or made his young life hell. He eavesdropped on the conversation between Rey and the officer he disliked. The conversation revolved around Roger Starr. Of course. Armitage ground his teeth. 

The man was also a fan of the books so he chatted enthusiastically to Rey, and she practically jumped on the opportunity to discuss her stupid craze. Armitage scowled. He wanted to tell her to shut up. He should have brought the fucking chain, then he could have yanked her away from her flirtation.

He forced himself to ignore them, instead he studied at the cadets as they got their awards, they looked absurdly young, too young.

Dessert brought conversation to the rest of the table, as the final award rolled out people started to talk louder. Everyone on their table talked to Rey, it was amazing, even when she argued with them they listened to her. 

It almost became absurd the way she eclipsed him, at first she had seemed almost forlorn, intimidated by the ridiculous ceremony, but now she had bloomed into her usual disgustingly sunny self. She would make an ideal officer. So fast with banter when he felt bored. Rey would make a perfect partner, no wonder Ren was so wanted her. Even he could see she could lead an army better than the Supreme Leader could wipe his arse.

Rey laughed at a quip from her new officer, she touched his sleeve.

Well, that was it. He was out. Off. Gone. Armitage barely excused himself and marched outside to the smoking area. It was a surprisingly clear night and the paved courtyard was heated with high gas flares that shot orange tinged shadows about the brickwork. 

The students circled away from him. In fact the graduation reminded him perfectly of his own youthful, rare formal events. Standing around while the other, more interesting, boys got to talk and enjoy themselves. His bracelet changed to yellow verging on orange, but he stood still. Inhaling, exhaling. He watched it fade back to grey.

“Here you are.”

“You have five minutes.”

“The music hasn't even started. Anyway, I thought we had to stay together.”

“If you get recognized I want to be as far away as possible. You will get noticed if you insist on seducing everyone in the room.”

Rey ignored his tone. “As soon as you left I got a stack of messages for you. They all greatly esteem you Tage, all the…” her voice lowered. “First Order.” 

The music started, a slow simple song.

She pressed against the glass of the window and he watched her rise on tiptoe to peer inside, and then he saw her slump. Rey turned back to him a tortured smile on her face.

“What? Go dance.”

“They are doing it funny.”

He looked at the couples. The frivolous waste of energy. "It's a formal dance. You dance with a partner. That man you were talking to should oblige, he always was a fucking tosser, he would love to help you out.”

“I don't know how,” she said despairingly.

“You've never danced?” Armitage blew a cloud of grey smoke and smiled, a smirking taunt. “Of course you haven’t.”

“Not like this. More like,” she jiggled, twisted. “I watched a holopad once where a girl danced on a pole.”

“Sadly no poles at the Academy, although that, ahem, school of dancing would make it a better event. And I haven't ever danced so you are out of luck”

“Never?”

“Well, we had a class at school,” he shuddered.

“Show me that. Teach me what you learnt.”

He looked at the dancers as they spun, clasped in each other’s arms. There had never been enough girls when he was at school. It had been a trial he’d rather not relive.

“No, I forget.”

Rey looked at a group on nearby students.

He watched her talking to the students. They almost fell over each other to dance with her. To show the beautiful woman how to hold a partner. He watched a young girl take her spinning past the windows as two boys laughingly teased them.

Was this the Resistance? Was it civilian life? Clearly it was First Order, everything was here. It wasn't all space battles and weapon building between the occasional Force choking. He pulled a piece of white card out of his pocket, it had been on the table when they arrived, but he had picked it up, before she saw it. In the dim glow from the flares he read it. It said, ‘Mrs. Tara Hux’.

Rey spun past, her artificial curls bobbing, she was clumsily clasped in her partner’s arms. Two little girls dancing in the night. They were giggling. 

He crushed the name setting, twisting it to garbage, and dropped it back in his jacket just as the school’s effectual Commandant found him. The crowd had caught up with him.

“Here you are General Hux, I’m so glad you could make it with such short notice. It’s always so much better for the students to see one of the rank and file attending, and an ex-student also. When Mr. Tian informed me you were in the area with your wife I felt it was my duty to offer an invitation. I hope you enjoyed the awards?”

“Of course,” he lied.

“Many naval students to come your way. We’ve had a good class, and more and more each year.”

“They are always welcome,” he said diplomatically. They were welcome, but over half of all fresh officers always fell apart in the first two months. There was something about space that broke youth, and their first post was always on one of the large ships. It weeded out the more flighty candidates. They were all nothing but cannon fodder and HR nightmares. Better to have stormtroopers, they were made for fighting. They didn't talk back.

“The students aren't bothering your wife?” The Commandant motioned to the growing crowd of students who surrounded Rey, as the young cadets and civilians decided outside was a better place to mingle, safely away from the bulk of teachers and officers.

“She should probably be kept away from them.” 

A waitress came outside and handed drinks to the growing crowd of adults. He noticed the dark skinned officer who had charmed Rey earlier step outside, and the man approached the General smiling. 

“Captain,” Armitage greeted him.

“General.”

Armitage noticed the man looked at his proximity bracelet as he raised the drink to his lips. He tugged his jacket over the grey plastic. 

“I was hoping to steal your wife, to dance.”

Armitage fought the urge to smash his glass into the man’s perfect face. His eye twitched, but he masked it as he turned to watch Rey talking to a group of students. He realized she was probably only a few years older than the graduating year. Probably enjoying mixing with the young crowd after being stuck with him for weeks. 

“She is preoccupied,” he advised the Captain.

As if Armitage didn’t already know the universe hated him, the students decided to continue dancing and Rey was in the arms of her partner again moving closer to the men as they strafed through the growing crowd.

The Captain bowed and deftly, smoothly intercepted the couple and Armitage could only watch as the man danced with Rey, they moved among the grey jackets, smoke and smiling people enjoying the unusually rainless night. Her face upturned to the Captain’s face, a blush blooming across her neck. His hand was on her waist.

Of course any officer would do, Armitage chided himself. It was twisted fate he had got so far, but it had been foolish to think the Resistance wouldn’t grasp an opportunity as it arose. He was just a mean to an end.

In the crowd the dancers spun away and the Commandant started talking again. Pointing out students to his star guest’s disinterested frown. 

“Your, ah,” the Commandant pointed at him, at his wrist.

He snapped out of his angry brooding to see his bracelet glowing. He looked around. No Rey. No smirking Captain. He tore a blaster out of the hand of a nearby Stormtrooper and pushed through the crowd. They parted for the man with the gun.

He watched his bracelet, letting it guide him closer.

Hearing a scuffle the General turned to see a fight break out near the rear of the courtyard, where the light was dimmest. It felt like the few short steps towards the pulsating pack were like attempting to walk in zero gravity. If people did know about the bet with Hakka, what was to stop them trying to force them apart to win? Or kidnapping her? That Captain, he knew, he knew about their gamble. 

He pushed through slower students feeling panicked. How stupid he had been to bring her.

Sure enough Rey was in the middle of a fight. The General’s rifle hummed as he activated the stun charge.

Her hands outstretched, she looked up, and the General saw she was not in any danger. Instead she was trying to pull two squabbling boys apart and was doing a good job. The Captain was there too, although he was watching the two students fight greatly amused, their arms swinging wildly.

The General grasped at one of the cadets grey uniforms himself and quickly they broke up, it seemed pointing a rifle in their faces made the angry students reconsider their grievances. 

Behind Armitage the scuffle whistle finally blew and everyone scattered before the instructors could dive in. He took hold of Rey’s arm and pulled her away dumping the rifle into the Captain’s surprised hands.

“We are leaving,” he barked as he pulled Rey by the elbow. “How dare you get involved in a school yard fight. You could have got killed. And then what? I would have lost the bet. All this for nothing! And to go off with that man. When I told you to stay with me.”

“ **You **told me to dance with him!”****

********

They moved towards a door in the rear wall of the courtyard and she twisted out of his tight grasp.

“I didn't start that fight Tage, it just happened, we were just there.” 

“You always are,” he answered unreasonably, he felt furious, a cold, hard anger. After all Rey wasn’t always there. She had only just begun being there. Only begun and he’d thought he’d nearly lost her. 

“Our jackets,” she sniffed wrapping her arms around herself.

“Fuck the jackets, mine’s covered in mud anyway.”

He put his arms around her possessively, forcefully, trying to shield their argument from curious eyes, but instead Rey stood stiffly. He noticed her lipstick had been smudged. Red like blood across her cheek.

“Fuck you,” she spat. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Why are you being so childish? Please stop.”

“Don't say please.”

The General looked up to see people in the darkness. Close enough to be listening. He somewhat roughly pulled her to the other side of the doorway. 

“What?” He said.

“Don't say please, I don't want to hear it anymore. I don’t want to hear that word ever again. You make me so mad, you all do.”

He felt confused, what has he done? He had only done everything she asked. Even when he didn’t want to, even when it was highly likely she would be caught, or he would be killed for treason. Didn’t she realize he had nearly had a heart attack when he couldn’t see her? And he hadn’t thought about the bet, not in that moment of fear. He had only been worried about her.

He tilted his chin up and stepped back, hands behind his back. “Talk,” he ordered.

I don't want to talk, and she was leaning forward pressing her lips against his shoulder. 

“That would be a first for you,” he felt her burrow in his side. Stars he would miss that, she had tortured him into someone who needed the crutch of touching. “Fine, good, don’t talk. I’m glad you agree this night had been a failure.” 

“He said please. Kylo Ren. He was always saying ‘please Rey please’ before he would try and force me to do whatever he wanted. He wants to control me, to stop me doing… being. I thought you were different?”

“Ren? That fool, I… don’t understand. Have you been drinking?”

He felt a little fist pound surprisingly hard into his chest.

“I won’t say please then, I’ll do whatever you want,” he lowered his voice, it was hardly audible. “Rey, I was worried when I couldn’t see you.”

Maybe he felt a short, sharp laugh come from her covered face.

A little louder Armitage chided her. “And now my dress jacket has lipstick on it. Filthy rebel.”

She looked up and he stared into her dark eyes, she was fire in his arms, burning through the barricades. He cupped her cheek the one that was spread with red. The General smiled at her before slowly he leaned into her. His mind repeated the same sentence over and over. 

‘Don't do this... don't do this.’ 

But it was too late. 

Finally his lips touched hers and the world was slowly disappearing around them. It was a small yet warm kiss. A kiss that made him feel clumsy yet electrified. His hands circled her waist; as the General pulled her closer, the kiss became deeper, more passionate. He felt her tongue explore and he met her breach with his own starved lust.

Two lovers kissing in the dark. Weakness and strength. 

***

Rey felt overwhelmed. She was starting to have unnatural feelings for the General. Disgusting thoughts. Like, almost like… but it couldn’t be. She stared at her hands. She had found one of his cigarette papers and was rolling it into a thin tube. Rolling and rolling.

They had made their excuses and left the Academy soon after he had kissed her. So far the flash of affection had been a lone event. Touching her bottom lip, the ghost of their kiss still lingered.

But now he was standing on the balcony outside his room. Smoking his filthy cigarette, waiting for the nasty rebel to go back to her room like a good girl. She’d been banned from sleeping with him and she knew why. Because they couldn’t stop. 

She spotted a liquor bottle on his desk and quickly skulled a few harsh gulps before pulling herself up.

He couldn’t tell her what to do. She would stay. She would stay and definitely not touch him, not kiss him, but she could make him want to. The proximity bracelet rubbed on her arm under her sleeves. How tired she was of the feeling of the plastic shackle. Of her dress with its tight seams and pulling fabric stretched under pinched arms. She peeled the offending dress off and stood in the middle of the room in her lingerie. Patting the black velvet details on the nude fabric Rey pushed up her breasts, arched an eyebrow and ran a finger under the lush lace of her bra strap. Slowly she pushed it off her shoulder, then the other side. Then unhooked it altogether and dropped it on the desk.

He was watching her, she could see the glow of his cigarette, sense his eyes. She briefly considered using the Force to reach him, to find out what he was feeling. Was he in turmoil? Was he angry? She abandoned the notion. Anyway, she was feeling a bit giddy, she didn’t think it would work very well right now. Instead she picked up her brush and sat cross-legged on the bed. She would brush her hair. Rey knew he liked watching that.

He must have got tired of standing outside because he came in and took off his jackets. Loosened his shirt. Took off his shoes. Paced the room as he moved, watching as she brushed slowly.

“Let me brush your hair?” She asked him.

To her surprise the General sat on the floor and leaned against the bed, his knees pulled up, head slightly bowed as he tensed. She moved to put a tan leg on each side of his body and started brushing, gently pulling through his amber hair. Her other hand moved along his cheek, along his jaw, down his neck, she held him still by his throat and he leant into her thigh, his eyebrows drawn together as if in pain. Lips brushed her leg. The pleasure of his touch inflamed her.

The small hand on his neck tightened.

“I wish I had the collar, I’d chain you to me,” she spoke.

“Aren’t I already?” 

“Yes, you are,” Rey angled his chin up and rubbed her cheek against forehead. “Say it,” she tightened her grip, her nails digging into his skin. “Say you belong to me.”

“Never,” Armitage easily grasped her wrists, breaking her hold, and turned to face her. “You are delusional about who is in charge here. I let you play, but that’s all you are, an expensive toy.”

Burning for his lips she leaned into him kiss him, but he evaded her touch. Instead he pushed her onto the bed and took off his shirt.

“I told you to go to your own room. You didn’t listen.” He lifted one of her legs and she writhed as he pulled her heat against his hard dick. She could feel the length sliding along her slit, through the fabric that separated them as he lowered himself over her.

He thrust against her and she saw his face twist into a smirk as he watched her squirm.

“You do look like a whore now,” he told her. “So much for the precious Jedi code. You touch me, and touch me and tease. Look at you, you’re the one who got drunk and took off her clothes. You’re the one who can’t even keep covered. I could fuck you,” he leaned into her bending over her body. She could see the pink spots on his cheeks, his neck mottled red. “You made me kiss you.”

She gasped as he moved faster, more urgent. His hands held her face so she couldn’t look away.

“You make me talk so you can masturbate,” he thrust so hard her body moved. She tried to pull his face to hers, but still he eluded her. “You ruin my life, my career.”  
Her hands were uselessly pulling him, nails digging into skin, drawing white lines of pressure along his back.

“You’re my favorite mistake,” he breathed and she gasped.

His head sagged over her breasts, his hair brushed along her shoulder as he pushed.

“I am going to fuck you,” he explained without looking at her face. “I really tried not to do it, there were so many times I didn’t.”

He rested his forehead between her breasts and undid his pants, pulling them off, naked and beautiful. His walls destroyed. Rey felt his penis press against her and she gasped wrapping her legs around his body. 

As he moved against her they became robots. Suddenly the movements were wrong. He held her, clinging like he was drowning.

“What? Why do you punish yourself, just be free. Kiss me,” she told him.

“It is all a game,” he answered, the words low.

Rey could shake him, the frustration was like a smoking volcano. “This is what I want, more than anything.” 

He stiffened at her admission.

Rey rolled him onto his back, straddling him and kissed his parted lips. He pulled her head, hair between his fingers, their tongues sweeping, probing. His breath ragged in his chest.

She swiped down his body till his cock lay against her buttocks, jutting against her. With one hand she reached back and ran her hand along his length. He felt hot in her palm and he moaned into her mouth as she stroked.

“It is only a game because you want it that way. Armitage, I…”

“Don’t say anything you’ll regret in the morning,” he warned.

“I feel love for you.”

He laughed a hollow shudder chased by a groan.

They kissed again and she felt him grip her arms, pulling and desperate. He tasted like cigarettes and caff.

She knelt up and pulled off her underwear. Armitage watched silently, his eyes large and glossy. She had smeared black make-up across his face and neck, lipstick bled across his mouth. She could only imagine how bad she looked, a fucking mess.

On a whim she leant over his white stomach and kissed along the ginger hair line to his raging erection, she sucked his dick into her mouth as she kicked off her panties. He moaned and said her name, low and growling. His cock tasted salty, smooth between her lips. She licked the head, her tongue tasting, dipping along the ridge.  
Feeling savage, her hormones sang as Rey tugged his length inside her mouth. Hands patted her head, first gently, then growing in urgency. Curls covered her eyes as she felt him thrust, chasing a deeper entry. Her vision became blurred filled by her own blonde strands and his amber pubic hair covered in pooling spit.

She pulled off and wiped her chin lewdly with the back of her hand.

“I’m going to fuck you,” she said. 

He swallowed and pulled her close. “Always talking,” he gasped and kissed her urgently, lifting his head to devour her mouth.

She pushed his cock into her wet pussy and sighed at the welcome pressure. Her hands clawed at his shoulders as their bodies slapped lewdly. She looked down to watch. In. Out. In. Out.

In.

Out.

In.

In.

In.

Armitage tugged her away from her mesmerizing view and they kissed like their lives depended on mouths being smashed together.

She could feel his thrusts become more urgent, until they couldn’t kiss anymore, each body needed oxygen, the battle was peaking. Rey buried her face in his hair and found a rhythm listening to his wracking grunts. Like a tap being turned on inside her she was being pulled from all sides. The small embarrassments of noises, and fluids, and control ground away to his name and pressure until she came, her spasms tearing a sob through her chest. Every stress lifted as she pulsed, mouth frozen wide in a silent hitching gasps. And under her Armitage was pressing up into her heat, his hands gripping her thighs, puling roughly, as he shot his own orgasm deep inside her twitching cunt.

She turned her lips back to his neck as they sagged into the afterglow. He was smiling with his eyes closed, tilting his chin up as Rey peppered his jaw with her kisses. Squirming he rubbed his slight stubble back against her, as if her touch was tickling his over stimulated senses.

“Stop,” he croaked after the third such kissing attack.

“Have I ever told you how pretty you are?” She cooed.

“Constantly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What to say? First up thank s to HattoriPornzo as I used her description of Rey's lingerie from chapter 4 of _Textile As a Medium _. I also referenced Oratorio's _Through the Barricades___ (just the title and I tried to make that italic too, but computer says no - just go read it, it's awesome) another favorite of mine.  
>  At the start I referenced an event that is (sort of) cannon, when Armitage talks about when the nerf calf that gets eaten. Anyway, I realise this event actually happened before he was born - I think - and that he actually never attended Arkanis Academy, but I've rearranged the universe a little.
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> _LOTS and LOTS of love to everyone who kudos and comments. I read them when I get stuck :)_  
>   
> 
> __  
> _One more chapter. Get the tissue boxes ready..._  
> 


	10. Ash and Embers

The grinding buzz of tiny motors vibrating against a hard surface woke him. It was early, too early. Usually he would have answered his comm device at almost any hour, but now he shrank lazily from reaching across to check it. He wondered if his increased sleeping pattern was to blame. Perhaps it made him foggy and decreased his usual motivation? 

Well some motivation. He buried his face under a pillow and remembered the previous night of satisfying, if a little frantic, love making.  
Smothered in his soft cocoon Armitage listened to his comm buzz and beep before realizing it may be disturbing people other than himself. He sat up and looked at his portable devise.

One of the Supreme Leader’s secretaries waited. Probably needing approval for something, or confirmation of an order that would be blatantly obvious to anyone with even half a brain.

Let him wait. The General placed the device face down on the carpet to stop the vibrations.

Alone. He was alone, but he could hear his shower. She was up early, or maybe he was up late? The rain clouds were there usual marbled grey, masking the time of day. He lay back down and rubbed his eyes, then his hands continued down his neck, to his chest, brushing his nipples and lower, across his stomach, his hairs prickling, standing to attention in the sudden touch from his cool hands. He circled his dick and relaxed into a dry tug. It felt good. Hard. Maybe he could have a smoke and join Rey in the shower? Maybe she would prefer he skipped the cigarette? He looked at his muddied coat, slung over a chair, only a little wishfully.

The comm stopped beeping, only to immediately repeat its annoying call.

He would smoke, and answer at the same time, get rid of the distraction and join the pretty rebel in the shower. He could have everything he wanted. A foreign feeling collected inside him. Like the calm of clear control, only sweeter. The General honestly felt he could have everything – he was finally holding the winning hand.  
He half dressed, just pulling his greatcoat, pants and boots on. Enough to quietly slip outside into the drip, drip of a number forty-four morning rain squall and lit up. He inhaled, that first perfect morning smoke and shivering in the cold.

The comm in his hand buzzed and beeped constantly, he cleared his throat and turned it to voice only.

“Speak,” he answered.

“General Hux, Supreme Leader wishes to speak to you. I am putting him through now.”

The General grimaced, of course he hadn’t been offered the choice of declining to speak to Ren. He considered dropping the device over the balcony and letting it smash to the hard, pebbled ground below.

The exchange to the Supreme Leader was almost instant. “Where are you?” Ren’s deep voice sounded angry.

Armitage took a slow drag of his cigarette and smiled. Wouldn’t he like to know? It would be the exquisite pleasure to let the idiot man-child know that the he, General Armitage Hux, the person the Supreme Leader had only ever treated with violent contempt had been fucking his crush. That she said she loved him. Let Ren storm and pose, this would be something he could hold over the imbecile’s thick head forever; even if nobody else ever knew.

“Arkanis Supreme Leader, I told you, I’ve been sending reports for days.” 

“I thought you were on Nal Hutta.”

Armitage stayed silent. There was nothing to say. He was not on Nal Hutta.

“There are rumors that Rey,” Ren paused minutely and Armitage winced, waiting for the hammer to fall. “That the Rebel Jedi - is on Nal Hutta, that she is working with the Hutt you are negotiating with.”

The General’s eye twitched as he raised the butt of his cigarette to his frowning lips. “Hakka, the Hutt’s name is Hakka. It’s all in the reports,” he said calmly. So calmly he could have fired a sniping round into a target 100 yards away with a cross wind, even with the twitch. “Impossible Supreme Leader, I would have got that information myself. Why would the Resistance want to be involved with the Hutts? They hate the Jedi.”

“Just get back there and find her General, this is the first report we’ve had for months. And get my factory built, I need you back in circulation.”

“Yes Sir, I have a ship organised to return me to Nal Hutta in five days.”

He heard the sound of something breaking at the Supreme Leader’s end of the conversation. “Not in five days Hux. Now, she could be already gone by the time you get there.”

“Impossible.”

“You keep saying that. What are you hiding? The girl, the slave, did you kill her? Show me your face. Do it now.”

A pause. He smoked, blinking as the fine drops of rain spat against his face. The feeling of hope that had so inflamed his when he awoke burnt out to ash.

The General switched on the video and looked into the pale, scarred face of the Supreme Leader. Kylo Ren narrowed his eyes and, if possible, he frowned even more than usual.

“I see.”

Could he see? Was his crime written all over his face? Was this stupid magic finger creature reading his mind right now? Could he do that over such a distance? He exhaled a stream of bluish grey smoke and subtly rolled his eyes at the increasingly angry Kylo Ren. If it was all over at least he had a chance to fight, to pull the strings he had twisted so securely within the First Order. But it seemed the Supreme Leader was still clueless, sucking on old information.

“General, while you are enjoying a holiday the whole universe hangs in the balance. You may not have a destiny to fulfill, but I am trying to build the most powerful government in the galaxy. Trying,” Ren hissed coldly. “Get to Nal Hutta and find me that rebel.”

Armitage could hear more smashing before the comm line dropped out. The pit of his stomach filled with his own cold, hard rage. How stupid he had been to succumb to his desire and now, and now… 

He stood on the very outermost edge balcony and let the water splash directly on his upturned face. He hated Arkanis. Hated it.

“FUUUCK!!” He screamed, voice cracking under the pressure, out into the clouds. A flock of ducks rose up in the distance and flapped away, as his voice echoed across the rain cloaked gardens.

Wrenching open the balcony door he saw Rey calmly talking to Jeffery. Her hair was wet and her eyes darted towards him, pretending she hadn’t just heard him yelling into the storm clouds. She was dressed and looking fresh. He had also missed their shower opportunity. His life was a fire inside a trash compactor.

“Thank you,” Rey nodded to Jeffery who shuffled out quickly. Then she turned to him and waved a hand. “Your caff is on the table.”

It was no use to sugar-coat his new information. It was better she found out immediately, to stop this all before it sank them any further. The General put his hands behind his back. He felt on the back foot without his shirt on, his rough jacket rubbed across his taunt shoulders. He was cold and wet and frustrated. “I just had a call from your boyfriend. It seems rumors of you being on Nal Hutta means I have to go find you there.”

Rey wrinkled her nose and sagged into her chair. “Will you find me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he answered and picked up his cup without sitting. “But, I’ve had my orders. Someone has been leaking something. You said only Hakka and his translator knows. It must have been one of them, or one of your so called friends in the Resistance.”

Rey looked at her hands, she frowned at her breakfast. “When I left that first night, to go convince you to take the bet, I heard Hakka say something. He said ‘Jedi are bad luck’ and he said it in basic not Huttese. I bet that’s what started the rumor… but, I thought people would think he meant Ren. The First Order, were the ones making everything so difficult.” She bit into her roll and thought. “It could also be the Resistance, if they are looking for me. I told them I would be fine and how long I would be gone, but I didn’t tell them where or with whom I was with. I haven’t been able to check in since Nal Hutta though, so they are probably getting worried. They may think I’m still there.”

“Whatever the reason, I can’t take you back.” He ran a hand through his hair and over his face. “All this for nothing.”

“For nothing,” Rey repeated softly.

Armitage put down his cup, he just needed to think.

“Maybe…” Rey started.

“Shut up.” He snapped back cutting through her chatter.

Her hand gripped the table, eyes flashed. “It’s my mouth, I can say what I want to.”

“Right now, I can’t listen to you,” he turned his back to her. “This is dangerous, not some… some…It’s not some Romance.”

“This? This right now? Where we live together, sleep together, where you kissed me? Tage I…”

“Be reasonable,” he cut her off again. “Best to snap this now when it’s already cracked, before the situation blows up in our hands. I told you it’s nothing. Rey, don’t fool yourself into thinking you feel anything more. Consider this; we’ve only known each other for three weeks. Now, I have to work out a way to get rid of you without any more complications than you’ve already caused.” He turned away and went back inside to his desk, he felt cornered, and although desperation had got him through many of his life’s difficulties this one was shaking his core. Why had he answered that fucking call? It had all almost been good. He stared at his display screen. No more playing, no more outings, no more pretending. He would think of a way to get Rey as far away from himself as possible, then he could truly focus again. He brought up the plans for the munitions factory on his display. They were perfect. He would have to take the land now.

Rey slipped outside, he could hear the door slide, but he didn’t look up.

His bracelet flashed yellow, he tapped it. Must be a malfunction, she couldn’t leave the balcony. That was all he needed. He waited and it stayed grey, then, just as he relaxed it lit up yellow, a burning yellow that rapidly turned to orange.

He bolted outside, feet skidding in the water, the balcony was empty. With his heart in his mouth Armitage leant over the railing. Nothing. He almost had a heart attack, he never thought he could feel such relief, but the worry crept back. Where was Rey? She was too far away, they were too far away. How could she leave him? Did he really say, ‘he had to work out a way to get rid of her’? He gritted his teeth in frustration. The rain had changed, it was a heavy shower and it soaked him through almost instantly.  
“Rey?” He called, looking in every direction. There was nothing. 

His proximity bracelet was staying a dark orange, a shade that he figured was only a few shades away from red. Armitage was afraid to move in case it changed. Instead he fished his tin out and had a cigarette, using his hand as an umbrella over the ember. Now his hand shook, but he clenched his fist defiantly. If anyone saw him it must look like he’s about the punch himself in the face. The water streamed off his hair, but suddenly he didn’t care. Let it rain. He pleaded with whatever universal powers that were left on the waterlogged planet that he’d be struck by lightning.

Until, with clenching jaw he regrouped. He watched the rain, he felt it blur his vision. What was he doing? It was weakness, mad, crazy happiness to be with her. For once in his life someone made him feel something… anything. Stuff the bet with the Hutts and fuck Kylo Ren. He might die a terrible, painful, probably long and terrifying death, but at least he felt that something. Something better than hatred and loneliness. Flicking the butt over the railing the General stood stiff, angular and turned about heel, determined to find Rey, his beautiful, silly, infuriating fake wife, and take back everything he had just told her. 

“You look terrible,” Rey snapped at him from his desk. She was casually looking over the plans for the munitions factory.

“How did you…? Get away from that!” He strode across the room and slammed the shut-down button for his display.

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t looking at anything… romantic.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” He grabbed her hand, her wrist was naked. “Where is your proximity bracelet?”

“The alarm didn’t go off when I removed it. I put it somewhere safe, but then we hardly need them anymore, apparently.”

He let go of her arm, pushing it roughly, but something in his face made her laugh which reignited his earlier anger ten-fold. How dare she! He had just been worried about her, that she'd splatted herself into oblivion, what wasted emotion. How did Rey know it hadn’t alarmed, she had probably just ruined everything. After all the trauma he had suffered.

“Tell me where it is,” he growled.

“No, I don’t think so.”

She stood up, her eyes narrow and folded her arms. “Now we get back to seeing how you like being stuck somewhere, to have to rely on someone else to control your movement. How about I take you as far away from me as possible?”

He could shake her, he was cold, wet and being made a fool of. She would pay for this. He would gladly pass her over to Kylo Ren and wished the pair of them many, many years of…

Her hands were touching his chest, undoing his jacket. He stood silently as she removed it, then stayed unmoving as she peeled the wet fabric off him and dropping it with a moist thump on the floor. 

Standing still was a skill all soldiers master during the most basic of training, but he sighed a little, exhaling through his nose, as her lips touched his cheek. Her hands moved over his bare shoulders and he couldn’t help leaning into her mouth as her tongue swirled through his lips. Always touching, always hands touching, he was a ruined man.

“Tage,” she murmured running a thumb along his sideburn and down his cheek, he shivered.

“Mmmm?”

“We are going to win that bet,” she kissed him again pressing tightly into his hips. His eyebrows darted upwards. Then lowered slowly as her hands grasp his belt. “So stop being so fucking dramatic.”

She kissed down his chest, breaking each kiss with a remark. “Your factory plans are good.” Her tongue circled his nipple making him gasp. “I won’t let anyone stop you, and you won’t catch me.” She was on her knees now running her nose through the hairline on his stomach. Her face was pressing against the black of his underwear as she pulled down his pants. He could see the tip of his erect cock was peeking out of the elastic band. He dared to rest a hand on the back of her head as she mouthed the thin fabric. His bracelet glowed brightly, orange light tangled in her loose hair.

Feeling like he would stop breathing if she touched his dick with her lips one more time he relaxed into the moment. He could feel her fingernails gently scratching against the waistband of his underwear dragging them down.

“Although, I just want to be clear,” she continued.

He sagged and grasped at her hair as she talked into his dick

“This is not romantic.”

Haha, was this when she revealed she had been teasing him all along?

“A consultation?” He asked hopefully.

“More like a dangerous joint venture,” she pulled down his underwear and licked the length of his cock hovering over the swelling length to dip her tongue against his slit. “And I refuse to have one more argument about how we feel about one another, I don’t care if we have known each other a day or a lifetime.” 

“I can’t lose you,” he moaned pressing into her. He could feel her smile against him as he hardened. He wanted to thrust down her throat, but the sight of his dick in her mouth, her dark lashes against her flushed cheeks, made him want to rush, to exchange the recent train of emotions for the adrenaline of release. Instead he focused on the room’s low hanging light fitting. 

He could feel her nose brushing his pubic hair as she sucked, her hands circling his shaft and cupping his increasingly tightening balls. As much as he wanted to shoot his load over her pretty face he held back pulling away.

Kneeling down Armitage kissed her firmly, pulling her into him, fumbled at her shirt until she pulled it off in a swift movement. She wriggled out of the rest of her clothes and he attacked her thirstily. Lowering her body to the carpet he noticed the room is getting darker, the rain outside heavier. Perfect. A big storm would hole them up for days. Or the reports of one. He sucked an erect nipple into his mouth and feasted, rolling it between his teeth as she moans his name.

The tip of his cock pressed against her entrance as he knelt over her. She squirmed under him panting and pink. Just a little push and he’d be fucking her for real. The suspension felt exquisite as he prodded slowly, just little thrusts, not trusting himself to push faster. He felt her hand wrap around the base of his cock as Rey tried to urge him inside. He let her guide him pulling her closer to spear himself inside of her.

“Tage,” she gasps, as he bottomed out thrusting into her. The press of her heat signaling a cliff he could no longer turn back from. 

“Keep saying my name,” he breathes into her neck. He wouldn’t last long, he was wound tight fucking her incredibly hot cunt. The worries melted away. They could do this. Fuck Kylo Ren, he moaned, almost laughing at himself. He didn’t want to think about him right now.

“Harder Tage,” she gasped her hands running down his back leaving little red lines on his skin. He adjusted and she puts her ankle on his shoulders. Stars she was flexible, he had never felt so deep inside before. He was thrusting so hard he was moving her entire body along the floor.

“Tage, oh fuck,” she babbled his name and he couldn’t hold back. With one last push his orgasm shot inside her, filling her, emptying himself. Giving her his all. His everything.

He collapsed, tenting his body over her still buried inside her cunt.

They lay like that kissing each other tenderly, touching each other softly exploring. Her skin was honey against his white. He lay propped on his elbows, staring at her breathing. He’d watched a love bite darken above her nipple and it felt oddly pleasant to know he’d marked her.

“I was wrong,” he said. “You are not nothing, you are everything.”

“I know. People make that mistake a lot with me.”

“I’m in love with you.”

“When did you know?” She asked stroking his jaw.

“When you lit my cigarette on the first day, after I gave you my jacket.”

“Liar,” she rolled shook his chin, making his head wobble, his red hair flicked across his eyes.

“S’true. I was secretly happy about the bet.”

“How can you lie to me face, after we just made love?”

“Technically we are still making love.” He smiled as she rolled away.

He turned up the heat and straightened his hair, although it sprung back into his eyes instantly. His knees felt like a mess of carpet burns. The rain belted down outside and he welcomed the chaos. Except… he looked at her rearranging the pillows in his bed as Rey built a little nest, a book in her hand.

At his display the General brought up the factory design again. It was very good, she was right. He fumbled in his desk drawer wanting a post coital smoke. A firm voice called behind him.

“Tage no.”

His hand hovered.

“No more smoking,” she ordered. “You just had two.”

He sighed. In five days he’d have all the time in the world to smoke. It would be five days and one on ship. Nobody was taking that away. 

They snuggled together in bed. Whispering insults, then revealing layers of their minds, peeling off old ideas and showing each other the shining, smooth new truths underneath. Rey just wanted to be free to be loved. Not by many, not the almost suffocating adoration of people wanting the last Jedi, just to be watched over, to be treasured.

He told her how much he hated his hair and the never-ending comments and insults. ‘How does a person fuck Armitage Hux? Answer is gingerly.’ or ‘What do you call a red head with an attitude? Answer, normal’. She kissed his head, pulling him close by the ears, telling him how much she loved each strand. Telling him how much she loved him, that she was his forever. We belong together she told him as she snuggled into his arms, but he could hear the choke in her voice.

“One day I will kill that boyfriend of yours,” he told her seriously. “He is so fucking precious, Ren thinks only he can save us all.”

“You talked to him directly this morning?”

He nodded.

“Did he see you?”

“Why?”

***

Rey looked at Armitage. Her make-up, rubbed off from the previous night’s love making, was still smeared across his face. She laughed, her welling tears turning to joy. “You look like, like, well to quote your father ‘a whore’. And you had no shirt on too! Your hair is all, oh Tage, who knows what he thought? There’s black and red all over your face and chest,” she put a hand over her mouth.

“I had a fag in my mouth too, oh fuck, no wonder he insinuated I was on holiday. The General closed his eyes. He probably took screen shots,” he curled into Rey. “Let the Supreme Leader wait. I have already found you.”

They spent the day in bed. They ate and read and kissed. Armitage played the Roger Starr holovid for her. It was full of characters standing around giving motivational speeches, crying silent tears and reminding each other about what happened in previous adventures. She absolutely loved it.  
He told her it had ruined his childhood and laughed during the motivational speeches.

She watched it again and he fell asleep. When it ended she turned to his sleeping face and studied his features, his pinkish eyelids at rest, his muscles relaxed, jaw slack, his brow so often furrowed into anger smooth and pale. Only the faintest of freckles coloured his high cheek bones. Rey smiled at him. He looked so different without the black uniform, without the tight clenched control, like his ruffled hair he softened.

Very, very gently she kissed a soft, amber sideburn, smelling his soap and smoke. He swiped at her in his sleep and she got a finger up her nose for her effort. She lay back and watched him breathe. Her body next to him, but a whole universe fighting between them. How strange to feel this way, he was right about the little time they had known each other. She had researched him, sure. She had read his known history preparing for her role as Resistance spy, but then, it so quickly stopped being a job and it had too easily twisted. Could it really only be 23 days ago he had leaned over her, while she sat trapped in his ship? A cold hearted General and she a slave in his hard First Order issue chair. She hadn’t let him kiss her then. 

His nostrils flared in his sleep.

Now she would let him kiss her anywhere. Her lips burned for his attention. What a joke. Was she really so touch starved? So lonely? That she kept fighting for this even when he pushed back really said something about her desperation.

Was she coercing him into something he didn’t want? Was she as bad as Kylo Ren? But worse, because Armitage didn’t have the Force to protect him.   
Rey sat up and bent over him, her hair like a curtain around his face, she kissed his lips and he opened his eyes. She kissed him again. Slowly. He sighed happily into her.

“Am I… I feel like I’m making you be with me.”

“You are.”

“I don’t want to control you.”

He cleared his throat and put on a face as if he listened carefully. It was his stupid ‘listen carefully’ face. She knew all his smirks and simpers and frowns, but she was still learning the genuine smiles.

“You always want to stop, us being together, and I was thinking; am I pushing you to do things you don’t want to do? I don’t want that. Tage if you say you don’t want this I’ll understand.”

He sat up and pulled her into his arms, she rested her head under his chin. She felt warm and safe. Finn had hugged her before and Leia. Once she had even thought that it might have been nice to have Ben hug her, but that was old, old, old. This was new, special, growing. She ran her hand over the muscles in his arm. Soft hairs and white skin. 

“Remember when I came to see you on your ship?”

She could hear a low moan inside his chest. “You mean the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in chains wearing my jacket, sitting in my chair, in my sleeping quarters?”

“You tried to kiss me.”

“I did not, an officer would never take advantage of a third party and especially not a General, and especially not a slave,” he pulled her closer and kissed her head. “I was interrogating you. It went exactly to my plan. The next time I question you I will not go easy on you rebel, I will be relentless,” he stroked her thigh. “It will be torture.”

“What will you do?”

“I will sit you down,” his mouth moved to her ear, “stripped completely naked, trapped helpless in front of everyone, and when I say everyone, I mean entire battalions of stormtroopers. I can do that you know. And… you don’t want to know what I do to you next innocent girl.”

Turning Rey knelt in front of him, she felt a tendril of unease even though she knew it was a game she liked to play. To make him talk. “Tell me?”

She must have looked worried, because he put a hand on each of her shoulders.

“I will make you brush my hair,” he said and smiled. “Don’t get caught Rey. I’m sure Ren will do much worse. Although, I admit he has very nice hair. I hate the man, but he has that whole Jedi mullet thing going.”

“Are you making a joke?” 

He smiled again.

*** 

The next five days were like a gift. Armitage didn’t work, or at least did very little. Rey carried her proximity bracelet, hidden away when they walked about and had a secret hiding spot for it when she went out alone. And now she found she could explore. A sudden choking freedom, that sometimes sent her scuttling back to the safety of the room. The house was large, the world suddenly enormous and yet, and yet, with the increased exercise she missed the Resistance and her friends. 

The overpowering reach of the General had loosened to a man she cared for, but who stayed silent and brooding. How people change and yet don’t change she thought. Yet he never begged her to stay, or promised that he could fix things that were never going to be fixed. He didn’t grasp or threaten, but he didn’t sugar coat or change to please her.

On one solitary walk she had found his portable comm device smashed on a rock under their bedroom window.

They spent hours just talking and playing pool. She let him win every game and he was shallow enough to pretend he had suddenly grown spectacularly better, and that the only reason for his one loss had been her cheating. 

They ate practically sitting in each other’s laps. She poured his caff and he brushed off crumbs from her breasts, telling her how filthy she was till it inevitably ended with Rey being bent over the breakfast table. Or lunch. Or dinner. 

She talked about improvements to the house and he was mock outraged at every suggestion. Didn’t she know that this was a family estate? That no fake-wife of his was going to change one strip of faded wallpaper. She brushed off his concerns and talked of new plumbing in the domestic quarters. Jeffery was getting fed up with leaking toilets. 

As time spilled out shorter and shorter they ignored it, but quite close to the end Rey made one request. Armitage had been quite firm on her suggestion about visiting Brendol before they left. Why ruin what little time they had left? He would not. She may waste her time however she pleased though. 

Rey stood in the downstairs hallway feeling awkward and small. Armitage had stayed firm and refused to go, and Rey wondered at her own decision. The General Senior cared not for visitors, especially wives from Jakku. She would most likely not be missed.

In a rambling, yet sharp conversation Brendol had managed to insult his son and had started to berate Rey, but she had not fought Unker Plutt all her life and not learnt a thing or two about how to talk her way around lecherous old men.

“I suppose you will live on ship with your husband?” Brendol sniffed after they had argued over several small grievances from shelf space to the freedom of mechanicals, and then the poor view from his window.

“I shall sir, but it was lovely to visit Arkanis.” She couldn’t bring herself to say it was lovely to visit Brendol. That would be an obvious lie.

“I find the rain gets to women anyway, they are always weeping over something,” he leaned forward as if to share some secret. “Did I tell you about his cat?”

“You did sir.”

And that was the end of that.

So their time grew shorter and Rey clung to every hour, every minute. It seemed she asked Armitage a hundred times if he was alright, until he scowled at each repeated question, until he worked out it was the question she wanted to hear from him.

On their last night, tucked together in his smaller ship bed, back in the oddly foreign feeling First Order officer’s sleeping quarters, he stiffly asked if she was alright and he let her cry. Armitage held Rey as she raged and patiently explained again his disgustingly sensible plan. 

“Be sane for once,” he ordered.

She put his hand over her mouth and yelled angrily until she felt her face go red, and his palm grew wet with her breath.

“Filthy rebel,” he told her and held her so tight she could hardly gasp his name. 

***

Back on Nal Hutta. He felt sick. He was nauseas, the sickness of dread and unhappiness. Armitage felt her little fingers brush his black glove, but the stormtroopers circled so he drew back. The return to space had meant the return to full uniform. After days and nights of more relaxed clothes he felt trussed up, choked in the blackness, but his face had fallen back into its natural sullen glare. No one looking at him would guess the turmoil inside.

She had fought him on his plan, she had refused to give up her proximity bracelet. They had nearly had a screaming match over it, but at the last minute she had appeared blotchy faced with bracelet secure, and thankfully grey, around her wrist.

They stood together, where they had stood a month ago in the boggy field where the ships landed. She lit his cigarette, the flame burned between their faces, but with a click he took the lighter from her hand and extinguished it.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he instructed sharply.

She looked away, at smaller ships circling a control tower. 

The General tapped his comm, a shiny new one. “What’s your account?” He asked in a gentler tone.

“I don’t need it Tage, I don’t want the money.”

“Like fuck, you need it. Think of all those imaginary starving kiddies the Resistance is always banging on about. Or at least our own children? I don’t want little Johnson and Sabrina to grow up in some backwater without a proper education.”

“Imaginary! How dare...” Rey snatched the comm device out of his hand and typed, swiping around the screen before tossing it back.

“That’s twice as much as we agreed on,” he whined looking at the screen.

“I need a fast ship, for carting the kids to dance class.”

“Have I told you I hate our fucking children?” He finished his cigarette. The last cigarette she would see him smoke for a long time.

“How can you be so calm?”

He looked her up and down, gold, gold, gold and a collar. One last time, to store away for the future. He straightened his hat and silently handed her the golden leash, pressing it’s hardness into her hand. The General silently started walking towards the palace and she fell in behind. The rancid air felt like acid stripping his body to raw nerves and black fabric.

The purchase of the factory site would be conducted after the bracelets were removed and inspected. Of course Hakka tried to cheat them. He rumbled at Rey in Huttenese.

She didn't answer, instead watching the bracelet inspection intently her chain clenched in both hands.

The room became noisy, the crowd was double the audience than last time. The General eyed the translator sourly as he took his time flipping the bracelets and checking information on a screen.

Hakka burbled at Rey again, trying to distract the officials and punters.

The translator repeated for the rest of the room. “How was your holiday?”

She answered in Huttenese and flopped on the cushions in front of her obese master. The slave girl swiped her hands on the insteps of her feet, stroking up her legs to her knees, then splayed her legs apart lewdly. 

The General squinted at her little adlibbed performance unsmiling. One of his stormtroopers dropped his rifle.

Rey sighed dramatically and spoke more in Huttenese.

“Ho, ho, ho,” the Hutt thought whatever she said was hilarious.

The General looked questionably at the interpreter. He really should have remembered to bring a protocol droid to translate.

“She said, I think I’m saying this correctly, she said ‘you kept her busy’…” the translator stammered.

The General couldn’t restrain the blushing smile this comment brought to his lips, but he smoothed the emotion before motioning to one of his staff to bring the armory contract over to be signed.

“Before we exchange, and we will exchange, our Supreme Leader had asked me to investigate if you have heard of any Jedi on Nal Hutta in the last month.”  
The stormtroopers rifles bobbed slightly towards the negotiation table.

“In the last month? None,” the translator advised.

“I thought as much,” General Hux’s eye twitched, but he stilled it with a single black gloved finger. “Should we continue?”

The Hutt pressed an inky, bloated body part that could have been a hand to the contract as the room erupted into beings swapping money over the bet over the General and the slave girl.

There were winners, there were losers, but only one thing was absolute to Armitage. A girl dressed in gold and red lipstick, eyes closed to the jeers and antics of the alien crowd. He nodded at her.

General Hux, imposing, intimidating and controlled, bowed to Hakka and motioned his guards to accompany him back outside. He did not look back.

***

 

At night. Alone in his room. After the campaigns, the fighting, the changes, the negotiations and endless orders he would just lie on the bed in his sparse grey room. Unmoving.

If he closed his eyes he could remember the feeling of his fingers in her mouth.

Although the familiar doubts always plagued him (after all who would love someone so defective and flawed?) he gently fanned the ember of hope while thinking of dark eyes and children’s books.

He had found the pink feathered earrings in his pocket, the pair she had bought at the Night Market and never worn. They stayed in his cigarette tin, pressed safely behind a square of card, smoothed and nicotine yellowed, that had ‘Mrs. Tara Hux’ written on it.

 

***

 

Somewhere past the rim of the well mapped inner worlds, on an unnamed planet, unnamed other than a series of numbers, the Resistance grew. Here where the air felt squeaky and the biggest animal was a kind of a small flat-faced seal, Rey sometimes made piles of stones with the Force. Like tiny volcano cones in the red dirt.

Her blonde hair grew out until she shaved it short.

On occasion she felt like smoking a cigarette.

 

***

 

Sunk in the shadowy edge of the market the General adjusted his sunglasses, pushing them back against the bridge of his nose with one yellow stained finger. Watching the rain, he opened his cigarette tin. His finger traced the familiar paper square before placing the smoke between his lips and stowing the silver box carefully away. He wondered if it had really been a year since his last visit to Arkanis and the Night Market. Over the past twelve months nothing had changed here. The fairy lights and lanterns still sparkled, the crowds bustled, the Academy cadets flirted outrageously and the rain fell on the roof, drumming to the hearts of everyone inside.

They had given each other a year to think. To survive, to grow and to fight. Not to try and influence each other, or possess, or rule, or press a destiny like their lives were some pre-ordained intergalactic soap opera. He wondered if she would be here. The General had convinced himself she wouldn’t be, that everything they did together was only a mistaken fling. Rey would have started a new life, and in a way he hoped she had. That she was happy somewhere dry. 

Light years away a star blazed and shone through the clouds.

He startled as a small hand pressed into his back. The cigarette landed, unlit on the ground, soaked to a mush of paper and brown in a puddle.

“Sorry.” Rey wrapped her arms around him pressing her face against him. He could feel her cheek pressing against his back. She had come! And her presence made him soar; the emotions he had been slaying broke free of their chains and instead sung with all the power of a super nova. But he straightened, tall, erect and military. Even now he was a proud man. 

“I’m trying to give up anyway,” he sighed without regret, and turned around.

She was really there, looking golden and young, shining like a flame. Curious and bright with only a faint shadow of sleeplessness around her eyes.

Rey smiled. “I thought you had to die of something?”

He kissed her, their lips meeting, the months waiting, the hours, the minutes fading. Inhaling her sunshine, his hands shook with his pent up hope set free. His hands curled into her short hair drawing her closer.

“Maybe I want to live for someone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I do hope you liked this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. 
> 
> It started as a project to distract me from my Reylo. Somewhere I could put lashings of excess romantic mush. It became a pretty sweet deal. Then an addiction...
> 
> Well, I suppose you have some questions. Like, ‘hey, why did the Resistance want that factory?’ and ‘is Ren still a dick?’ and ‘really, is that how it ends? That’s not very realistic for made up characters from a made up universe.’ Or my favorite, ‘how many Arkanis native frogs died from eating dropped cigarette butts, you environmentally evil scum?’
> 
> Well, maybe I have more adventures for these two, but I need to finish my other neglected story, so excuse me while I go pour some petrol on my other burning trash pile.


End file.
